Module 3 checkpoint: write your project scope

Drafting a project scope or statement of work gives you the 30,000-foot view. Once it is written, share it with the team and the members it affects. Get buy-in before week one.

A project scope is one to two pages. It includes: the project name and dates, the picked style (waterfall, agile, mixed), the objectives, the resource plan, the theory of change, the KPIs, and an explicit list of what this project is NOT doing. That last bit — the "not doing" list — is what prevents scope creep.

Once written, share it with your team first, then with the members or stakeholders the project affects. Ask three questions of each: "Is the objective clear? Is there anything missing we should add? Is there anything here we should drop?" Write down the answers. Decide as a team what changes.

Use the project scope as a reference document for the rest of the project. When a new ask comes in mid-project ("can we also do X?"), open the scope and ask whether the new ask serves an existing objective. If it does, name how. If it does not, say so and let the team decide whether to add it (which means dropping something else) or defer it to a future project.

Templates: Asana has a free project scope template; Smartsheet does too. A blank Google Doc with the headings above also works. The artifact matters less than the conversation it forces.