Now, let's look at something more
complex and focus on the scope management in external projects.
This project is not necessarily a big project,
but it is external to the client.
Therefore, in this case,
the project charter is insufficient in
identifying responsibilities and outlining the scope.
In the simplest case,
the project involves two actors:
the client and the contractor.
In such scenarios, part of the scope management
focusses on the relationship between these two actors.
For example, the client engages an external contractor to carry out the work.
Part of the scope management is handled by the project contract,
specifying a number of things:
including the scope of the project,
the terms and conditions,
the responsibilities and roles of the two parties involved,
the economic compensation that the client provides to the contractor,
and how this compensation is provided.
It also includes provisions related to how to
handle the relationship between the client and the contractor,
either in normal working conditions or in case of litigation.
The contract introduces a workable framework to
amend the project scope during its implementation.
Obviously, changes in the scope during the project's implementation are expensive,
and the contract assigns decision making powers,
as well as the method to quantify
and to assign the extra work that is created by such amendments.
If the contractor is a single organisation,
it can work in the way we have outlined.
So, it can produce a product charter to manage its own role in the project.
In internal projects, the project statement is included into the project charter.
Conversely, in external projects,
the project statement is included in
the project contract and then included in the contractor's project charter.
In construction projects, the situation is often more complex.
Sometimes, the contractor itself subcontracts part of the work to a subcontractor.
This means that the scope is further broken
down by means of multiple contracting transactions.
As we can see in this later case,
scope management is much more complex because it is fragmented
across multiple instruments and it is co-managed by multiple organisations.
In major projects, the level of complexity is even greater.
So, as we can see here, with respect to the scope management,
there is not only one contract,
but a network of contracts.
In this case, the scope management is handled similarly to
external projects because there are many contracts which are interlinked.
There is an additional layer of complexity.
As a result, the relationship ordinarily managed by the project contract,
is far more dispersed and more complex.
As we have seen, it's very difficult to generalise about scope management:
we need to consider the specific context.
We have seen that in major projects,
there are specific challenges because there are many parties involved in the project.
The fragmentation of both the project scope and the organisations
involved in the scope management activities create significant challenges.