6 Free Project Scope Templates

Scope is the boundary of a project: what it will produce and, as importantly, what it will not. Scope creep, the slow expansion of that boundary without new time or money, is the most reported cause of project overruns in every survey of project managers, and it happens one reasonable request at a time. The defense is a written scope that names the exclusions, a change process that prices additions, and acceptance criteria that say when a deliverable is done.

The six templates here cover that sequence: a scope statement, an in-scope and out-of-scope matrix, a work breakdown structure, a scope change request, a change log, and an acceptance criteria sheet. Excel holds the structured ones; Word and PDF hold the statement and the request form for signatures.

Download the templates

The six templates

• Scope statement. Purpose, objectives, deliverables, in scope, out of scope, assumptions, constraints and acceptance, for signature.
• In-scope and out-of-scope matrix. Seven areas where the boundary is usually argued, each with both sides stated.
• Work breakdown structure. Deliverables broken into work packages with owner, effort and an acceptance criterion each.
• Scope change request. The form that prices an addition before it is agreed.
• Change log. Every request, its impact and the decision, with cumulative cost.
• Acceptance criteria. What done means for each deliverable and who verified it.

Where scope creep comes from

Scope creep rarely arrives as a demand. It arrives as "while you are in there", as a stakeholder who was not consulted and now has requirements, as a deliverable whose definition was vague enough to stretch, and as a team that says yes to be helpful. Each is addressed by a document: the exclusions in the statement answer "while you are in there"; the stakeholder list in the project description catches the late requirer; the acceptance criteria fix the definition; the change request gives the team a way to say "yes, and here is what it costs".

The in-scope and out-of-scope matrix is the most useful page in the set because it forces exclusions to be written down by area. "Training is out of scope" written in April saves a week in September.

Running scope change control

A change request is not a refusal. It is a price. The form records the change, the reason, the impact on deliverables, schedule, cost, risk and quality, the alternatives, and a recommendation, and the sponsor decides. Most requests are approved; the point is that they are approved with their cost, so the baseline moves with them and the project is not later judged against a scope it was never funded for. The log keeps the cumulative impact visible, which is the number that stops the thirtieth small change.

Agile projects handle this differently, by fixing time and cost and flexing scope through the backlog; the agile templates cover that model. The change request still applies when the fixed things are asked to move.

Work breakdown and acceptance

The WBS turns deliverables into work packages small enough to estimate and assign, usually eight to eighty hours each. Each package carries an acceptance criterion so that done is defined before the work starts. The deliverables templates develop the acceptance side; the estimate templates price the packages.

Key takeaways

• Scope is what the project will produce and what it will not; the exclusions are the part that saves time.
• Scope creep arrives as reasonable requests; the change request gives them a price and the log keeps the total visible.
• Break deliverables into work packages with an acceptance criterion each, so done is defined before work starts.
• Have the sponsor sign the statement and decide every change.