Elements of project plan
1. Project Scope Planning
Any project is expected to provide its stakeholders with certain outcome, which is commonly termed
as project deliverables. These project deliverables depends on the scope of the project. Analogically,
defining a project scope is like drawing a map. In the map, the boundaries are drawn to indicate
stretch/ extent of a given territory; similarly project scope outlines the extent of project deliverables.
Essentially, project scope is the definition of what the project is expected to achieve and specify the
budget of both time and cost that needs to be provisioned to create the project deliverables before the
project gets closed. For the best result, one needs to take care of clearly carving out project definition
& the budgetary requirements. More detailing & precision during project planning definitely help the
team organize their work efficiently & deliver the project more effectively. Without a project scope,
project execution can go haywire.
Project Deliverables
To define project scope, one needs to refer project requirements. The project planner needs to list
down project deliverable items unambiguously stating whether they are ‘In Scope’ or ‘Not in Scope’.
So, project scope is about outlining the project deliverables. Based on project scope, project planner(s)
create(s) work break down structure (WBS).
1.1. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
The WBS is a breakdown/ decomposition of project work into distinct work items at higher level.
These work items are aligned with the project objective and can help the project team to create
expected deliverables. Generally the project team can refer to this work item hierarchy to decide
whether any given task is included in WBS or not.