Why is project scope so important?

What should be the nature of project management? Do companies need to follow the traditional(Wysocki, 2011) way of project management? Or do they have to switch to adoptive (or Agile) (Wysocki, 2011) approached? Although each of the project management ways has its pros and cons, the important thing is project management is a methodology for getting work done.

How could it be any better than to know the goal and the solution? (Wysocki, 2011) For many years, traditional project management way has become a well-accepted way to manage projects. Testimonial data that I have gathered from all over the world suggest that about 20% of all projects legitimately done by traditional project management approach(Wysocki, 2011). In this approached project scope and goal(s) identified at the beginning of the project.

On the other hand, building innovative products, processes, and business models require a new approach to management in general and project management in particular (Highsmith, 2009), which lead us to the Adaptive project management. Adaptive project management is an approach based on delivering requirements iteratively and incrementally throughout the project life cycle. At the core of the adaptive model is the requirement to exhibit central values and behaviours of trust, flexibility, empowerment and collaboration.

The Major difference between traditional and adoptive models is the Project Scope. In a traditional model, the scope is done once at the beginning of the project. In the adoptive project, the scope is adjusted at each phase (Wysocki, 2011). Based on the above natures of project management, we can say the Nature of project management can either be insanely complicated (Adaptive) or simple (Traditional) depending on how you look at the Scope Phase.

References:

· Highsmith, J. R. (2009). Agile project management: creating innovative products: Pearson Education.

· Wysocki, R. K. (2011). Effective project management: traditional, agile, extreme: John Wiley & Sons.