From the course: Project Management Foundations: Schedules

Reduce scope - Microsoft Project Tutorial

From the course: Project Management Foundations: Schedules

Reduce scope

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- When the finish date and budget are non-negotiable, project scope is another variable you can adjust to make everything balanced. Reducing scope translates to cutting the activities associated with delivering that scope. So the time and cost for those activities get subtracted from the schedule. Fewer tasks on the critical path mean a shorter schedule. Fewer work hours means lower labor costs, and other cost reductions like overhead. Reducing project scope is a last resort because the scope is intimately tied to the project goal and objectives. In many projects, the stakeholders decide which parts of scope to cut. However, if the stakeholders ask for suggestions, revisit the project objectives to see which is the least important. In our sample project, the training guide is top priority. The website is the next highest priority, but it isn't causing the finish date issue. Initially, it doesn't look like removing scope will shorten the schedule, but reducing scope doesn't have to be traumatic or permanent. One option is to break the project into pieces. Like an agile project, the essential scope is delivered in the first iteration. When that's complete, you can begin a second round to deliver the scope that remains. In our example, one option is to break the training guide into a beginner and advanced guide. That way, the beginner guide can be published right after the software is released. July 6th here. The advanced guide comes out August 11. Breaking the guide into two pieces does a little fast tracking to the schedule. It turns out that the entire training guide is available by August 11, almost a month earlier than working on the guide in one piece. The advantage to reducing scope is that it can shorten the schedule and reduce costs. It's best to adjust scope after you've tried everything else.

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