Re: Scoping a Product Was RE: complete documentation

["CB Casper" <knowone -at- surfy -dot- net>]

>> Since, evidently, there is no published tech writer
literature on the scoping a product, we should follow
the lead of the communities that have written about it
- the Requirements Analysts and (real) Systems
Analysts.  Tony Markos >>

To which I finally respond:

The only way to scope any project, and this is a 
definitive, meant to exclude any possible, potential,
past used, or even unmentioned methodology or analysis
path, is to do the following:


Figure out what is included and what is not.


You can use this and create a whole industry around it.

Every project is unique and requires some thought as
to what can be done, needs to be done, and what 
should be done within the boundaries of time, budget,
and quality.

Most projects can build on the knowledge and 
experience of previous similar projects, so rarely
is a project cut from whole cloth, warranting a new
and totally virgin scope.

Many times the scope is determined before any real
tangible work is done on the project. The scope 
determines everything else. Scope is such a broad
term and is used differently at different phases,
that it is impossible to describe it definitively
for all cases, except by using blurb above based in
the context it is used.

My project plans always include a table of what the
project is and is not, and sometimes a maybe column
for things that might be included depending on time
and opportunity.

The scope of my documentation is dependent on the 
scope of the product, which is determined by the
scope of the corporate division, which is also
forced within the scope of the company as a whole.

Context is everything, and without it, not much
can be written, again, except for the blurb above.

CB - who usually doesn't make such narrow 
pronouncements about the veracity of any particular
approach, but thought this time the subject of
scope could use my vastly superior insights

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