Transportation Project Management

4 Scope

“No matter how good the team or how efficient the methodology, if we’re not solving the right problem, the project fails.”

– Woody Williams

Scoping is a task, and a process. All project development schedules should include a scoping task, which may be the most important task in the schedule. It represents the culmination of the scoping process, or phase, of the project. The deliverable for this task is often an approved Scoping Form or Report. This should be so much more than an obligatory form or rubber-stamped approval. Successful scoping charts a course for success. Conversely, inadequate scoping ensures complications.

At its core, Scoping establishes the project’s budget, schedule, and design content. You cannot close scoping until all three of these are resolved. The formal approval of scoping then grants the project approval to proceed. The established budget, scope (design content), and schedule are reflected in the project’s Triple Constraint.

One of the foundational elements of successful project management is effective risk management. This is as much a mindset as it is a prescribed list of activities. Great PMs are exceptional at viewing their world through risk management-colored glasses, which grants them an anchored budget-scope-schedule perspective to innovation and problem solving. This is perhaps never more evident than in Scoping.

Generally speaking, Scoping should define the problem, solution, and project approach. But Scoping extends beyond confirming ...