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BY JASON LEUNG TECH SUPPORT The triple constraint Scope, time, and cost are the three prongs of the project management process and changes in one will always affect the others. this article, I will describe the three areas that make up what is commonly known as the triple constraint — the areas of scope, time, and cost. The triple constraint recognizes that when one of these areas is changed in a project, then there will be some impact on at least one of the other two. For example, when a change is made to increase the project scope, it is likely that project duration will also increase and/or costs will also go up. It is common for clients to request A a change in scope, time, or cost during the course of your legal representation. For instance, when an earlier-than-sched- uled deadline is imposed by a client, this change in time must be accompanied by considering possible changes in scope and costs, and it is important for the respon- sible lawyer to be upfront with the client regarding the potential impact on scope and costs. Scope management Scope management refers to defining and maintaining control over all of the work that needs to be done to complete the project. Lawyers should ensure only the work within the project scope is done. It may be tempting to do work outside the agreed upon project scope in an attempt to exceed client expectations. However, such "gold plating" may create several problems in the project such as increased risk. If a change in scope is requested, it must be considered and accepted through s discussed in my pre- vious article, project management processes can be categorized into nine different areas. In a formal change procedure. Scope management consists of the fol- lowing processes: • Collect requirements: gathering infor- mation on the requirements needed in order to satisfy project stakeholders. This process may include interviewing the client or a meeting of your team of lawyers to brainstorm ideas. • Define scope: includes analyzing the requirements and adding details to cre- ate a project scope statement. The pro- ject scope statement provides information with respect to the project and product deliverables, including the goals of the project, the product description, require- ments for the project, constraints, assump- tions, and identified risks. • Create work breakdown structure: develop a hierarchical chart composed of nodes representing all of the work to be performed. One of the highest levels of the WBS may be made up of nodes repre- senting each of the project deliverables. A node representing a project deliverable is decomposed into multiple nodes at a lower level of the WBS. At the lowest level of the WBS, each node represents a work package. The work packages underneath a deliverable should add up to all of the work required to produce that deliverable. • Verify scope: deliverable created during project execution is inspected, often by the client. The client may either accept the deliverable or request a change to the deliverable. • Control scope: includes managing scope change requests and preventing them if they are unnecessary. Although a project scope statement can be produced using word process- 24 OCTO BER 2011 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com ing software, the WBS should be created using project management software. MS Project is my preferred tool for developing the WBS. I enter in the names of each project task into a task name column. I then create summary tasks and subtasks, representing higher and lower levels of the WBS respectively, simply by highlighting the subtasks and clicking on an indent button. MS Project converts this informa- tion into a WBS with automatic number- ing for each task. Time management Time management involves developing and controlling the project schedule. Even if a lawyer is presented with imposed deadlines at the beginning of a mat- ter, it is still important to first build a schedule based on the project scope, and then make it conform to other calendar requirements, constraints, and strategic goals. Time management processes include: • Define activities: work packages from the WBS are further decomposed into specific activities. This produces an activ- ity list of the project activities. • Sequence activities: This involves arran- ging the activities in the activity list into the order in which they are to be per- formed. This process will often result in a network diagram where activities are represented by nodes and connected by arrows to show their dependencies. • Estimate activity resources: estimate the number and type of human and physic- al resources required for each activity is determined. • Estimate activity durations: estimating how long each activity will take. I prefer