Some people think that being a project manager is a job that everyone can do: Just coordinate people, control indicators, tasks follow up and that’s it, but talking about a project manager, a lot of other necessary skills and issues are missed.

For me, 70% of the project success goes through getting a good project definition, a clear agreement and objectivesachievement. In one way or another, the project manager is involved in all these steps.

For a better understanding, let me explain some different “project scope states” that all projects go through:

– What do customers/stakeholders really wish?

– What do customers/stakeholders really need? (PMP – Project Statement of Work).

– What do customers/stakeholders ask for? (PMP – Project charter)

– What do sponsor/project manager understand that customers/stakeholders request are? (PMP – Collect Requirements process)

– How project team transforms requirements to project issues? (PMP – Define Scope process)

– At the end, what percentage requirements are achieved in? (PMP– Monitoring and controlling and scope validation)

There is a thick division between each scope state and if it goes wider, risk to not achieving project success increases…

Taking care that these scope states exist is the first step to achieve project success. Other things that are very important to take care are:

– To include some validating points in the “states”: For example, once project issues are defined by project team, these can be validated by customers/stakeholders or involved in creation (PMP – Project Scope Statement). Also, before finishing project, there is a customer/stakeholder validation for each “deliverable” (PMP – Validating Scope).

– And one last more, having a good project change management as well as maintain and assure a good communication with customers/stakeholders is very important during all project (and after…).