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HomeBlogProject ManagementWhat is Scope Baseline? Components, Examples, Templates
Projects are temporary endeavors taken up to achieve the desired outcomes. The temporary endeavors are taken up based on input from many stakeholders who define their requirements and expectations for the project. It is nearly impossible to satisfy all project stakeholders or meet all their expectations during the short project timeline. This is because customers and stakeholders love to envision incremental evolution of the outcome as the team continues building the project requirements. To avoid the chaos or imbalance caused by this ever-growing vision and likes of the project stakeholders, the project manager needs to use a powerful project management concept. In this article today, we will be reviewing all about this concept, i.e., what is scope baseline, what is its importance, how it is built, the pros and cons of using it, and how to develop a scope baseline in the project. So, let us begin our project journey now!
The project scope baseline defines the formal and agreed boundaries or limits of what needs to be included in the project delivery. To clearly understand the scope baseline in project management, let us first learn about project scope, which is comprised of two major elements - product scope (the activities done to build the features and functionalities of the product as per specified requirements, i.e., the output) and project scope (the work performed to create the output, i.e., the work, methods, processes to create project deliverables) which together form the overall scope that needs to be marked as a baseline, i.e., set as a reference or to be frozen during project planning to be used as a benchmark or comparison point to guide the project execution. The scope baseline in project management serves as a formal agreement among the team and stakeholders, i.e., any changes would have to go through a formal change management process based on reviews and approvals. This is the scope baseline importance and how it helps guard the project against scope creep and derailment from planned activities.
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Scope is one of the key project management constraints, along with schedule and cost.
Project scope baselines are important tools for any project to establish change control processes and avoid pitfalls of project management in many ways, such as:
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Scope baseline in project management, as we have seen above, is primarily used to strengthen the project governance model by:
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A project scope baseline is a key piece of project planning and includes the following key components:
The above components of a scope baseline help put together the scope baseline in the project planning phase to establish the project scope guideline for execution. The project scope statement strives to determine which requirements from the product and project scope formulate the agreed deliverables and what will explicitly not be done/performed as part of the project. This distinction of scope becomes highly critical during the project execution phase and helps enforce change requests per the defined change management process. Regarding project management processes, the scope baseline becomes an output of the create WBS process and hence uses the WBS WBS dictionary as the core input.
Having understood what is a scope baseline and what its key components are, let me now explain the steps involved in understanding how to create a scope baseline for the project.
1. Develop a scope statement: The first step is to develop a scope statement that includes the details of the deliverables and project objectives, viz.
2. Create a WBS: The next step involves creating a WBS and corresponding WBS dictionary to decompose the project scope into tasks and activities and weave the hierarchy together to strengthen the delivery framework. By creating a WBS hierarchy, the project manager helps establish the control accounts, the planning packages, and the respective work packages, defining a bi-directional hierarchy.
3. Create a WBS dictionary: Once the deliverables are decomposed into a hierarchical WBS format, further details regarding the known assumptions, acceptance criteria, finer task details, and responsibilities are added to the WBS dictionary.
4. Gain stakeholder approval: After documenting the scope and defining the work breakdown, the most important step is presenting it to the stakeholders and getting their consent. The mode, level, and type of approvals for the scope baseline differ according to the project charter and the governance framework. Apart from other stakeholders, the project sponsor and senior leadership are key members who must review and sign off to convert the above documentation into a formalized project baseline.
5. Share the scope baseline with your team: To bring all team members and stakeholders to a common page on the project scope and deliverables, it is important to communicate the scope baseline to the team. This helps create a top-down alignment in the organization to smoothen the execution phase, avoid scope creep, and clarify change management processes.
A project scope baseline template, also sometimes referred to as a project scope template, may differ from organization to organization, but here is a common scope baseline template for reference to get started with:
To understand the scope baseline, let us use a very simple example of what is described as building a concept electric vehicle.
A. Project Scope Description: Build a sustainable and low-cost electric vehicle as a four-seater hatchback model with a two-seater convertible offering minimal recharge time (max 15 minutes for full charge), a joystick-based gearing system, and a replaceable battery model.
B. Project Deliverables
Inclusions:
Exclusions:
C. Project Constraints
D. Project success criteria
The above is just a glimpse of how a project scope baseline gets formulated; there is much more to it. Understand this in detail and build end-to-end project management expertise by learning from KnowledgeHut's Project Management training courses.
It is unanimously agreed by professionals across various industries that having a project baseline may not have any major cons but is a harbinger of multiple benefits, such as helping clarify project objectives, determining the inclusions and exclusions in project scope, and setting the boundaries for the projects. According to a study by the Project Management Institute (PMI), projects with a thorough scope management process with baselines established had a better success rate with minimal impacts on other project constraints.
Establishing a scope baseline in the project undertakes the additional responsibility of clarifying how the scope changes can be dealt with and avoiding any undesired project disruptions in the execution or later phases of the project. Having an assertive scope baseline can also set stakeholder expectations following project priorities, help align resources and communication, and mitigate risks, thereby enhancing stakeholder engagement and trust.
If I may quote in simple terms, any industry that follows project management processes does and must create the project baselines and, specifically, the scope baseline. Popular areas of application of this key project management process output include:
Nonetheless, irrespective of the industry type, the gist of the scope baseline remains to protect the project from unwanted changes and bring alignment amidst chaos.
Scope baseline and scope creep are two vastly different project management concepts. While scope baseline refers to benchmarking the project scope as a reference point, it is often done to avoid the latter, i.e., scope creep, which necessarily means unaccounted changes that gradually affect and derail the project from its originally planned activities. Here is a list of points that differ between the two:
Scope Creep | Scope Baseline |
Scope creep is essentially the problem itself, i.e., unaccounted changes affecting agreed project scope or other baselines. | Scope baseline is the solution to the scope creep problem by documenting and agreeing on the project scope. |
Is an informal and unaccounted change | It is a formal and agreed process step |
This can occur during the planning or execution phases | It is formalized during planning and used during execution |
It is negative and brings problems | It is positive and drives alignment |
Project Scope, along with schedule and cost, formulates the project management triangle, designating the key challenges that projects may pose if they are not well managed or articulated. Project scope baselines are key criteria to help bring transparency to what can be considered included, i.e., in-scope, and what can be considered excluded, i.e., out-of-scope for the project. The scope baseline is formulated using the project scope statement (list of deliverables and objectives), the work breakdown structure (WBS), and the WBS dictionary, defining the project deliverables' what and how.
Creating the scope baseline and defining the change management process is only the commencement; project performance must be thoroughly examined occasionally to remain in line with the plan and not go over or against the scope baseline. A well-managed scope baseline can go a long way to avoid traps of scope creep or gold plating by allowing project teams to focus only and ONLY on what is committed, ignoring all other noise.
The project scope baseline is formally established and documented in the Project scope management knowledge area as per the PMBOK. It accounts for reviewing the project scope statement, the work breakdown structure, and the WBS dictionary to culminate into a formal and ready-to-be-approved and communicated project baseline.
Project baseline definition involves freezing the project scope to protect from any unwarranted or unaccounted-for changes and, as such, cannot be changed during the project. However, any changes that stakeholders request must go through a formalized change management and approval process to be classified as change requests (CRs) and to be a part of the project scope subject to agreed terms.
Scope baseline is a project management measure devised to manage project scope changes. It is well known and experienced that projects never go as planned - to avoid the chaos and the mismatch of expectations as the project moves from planning into execution, project baselines (scope, schedule, and cost) act as guardrails to assess and manage the variances.
Creating the project scope baseline involves building a foundational understanding of the project deliverables and objectives and decomposing them into smaller components with finer details. To do this, first, the team must thoroughly understand the product requirements and processes involved, review lessons learned from past projects, undertake expert judgment, and use the team's interpersonal skills to collaborate and arrive at a scope baseline.
Scope baselines differ from project plans as they are the subset of project planning activities and complement the planning, which covers the other baselines. Scope focuses solely on the project inclusions and exclusions, while project plans encompass all subsidiary management plans.
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