IT · 10 min
How to scope an IT project so it can finish
Unfinished software is usually unscoped software.
Write the user and the job in one sentence. 'Finance can export last month's invoices as CSV without asking engineering' is a scope. 'Digital transformation' is not.
List what is out. Integrations you will not touch, browsers you will not support, data you will not migrate. Out-of-scope is how you protect the in-scope work.
Name owners: who accepts the result, who supplies data, who will operate it. If those seats are empty, the project will stall after the demo.
First release should be smaller than the slide. A thin slice that runs in production teaches you more than a complete design that never ships. Put the rest on a dated list, not in the same build.
Constraints are part of scope: budget band, calendar, existing systems that cannot move, security rules. Pretending they are 'phase two' is how phase one never ends.
Shefa will not start build work without this written. Consultation is the meeting where we write it. Delivery is what happens after you sign it.