How to write a project scope statement.

Adobe for Business Team

07-30-2025

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Many projects fail not because of a lack of effort, but because they lack clearly defined objectives. While team members may begin with a general idea of their responsibilities, relying on assumptions can lead to scope creep, missed deadlines, and projects that drift off course.

This is where a formal project scope statement becomes essential. By defining a project's purpose, key deliverables, and boundaries, clarifying what is and what is not part of the plan, a scope statement ensures everyone is aligned and working toward the same goal. This allows the team to fulfill their responsibilities in a transparent and timely manner.

Learning to write an effective project scope statement is a critical step toward improving project efficiency and success. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how to craft and implement a project scope.

In this post, we’ll cover:

What is a project scope statement?

A project scope statement provides a clear definition of a project's boundaries. It encompasses all the assumptions, responsibilities, requirements, constraints, milestones, and deliverables necessary to ensure the project's success. Project scope statements, also known as statements of work, are used by project managers and upper management to plan for and determine a project’s overall progress and execution.

These documents become a map that the entire team can use to navigate toward a desired outcome. They set the stage for the project by defining all the required outputs and the dates by which each component should be completed. From there, stakeholders can create project scope management plans and assign responsibilities to the appropriate resources to carry out the work on schedule and budget.

Project scope statements are just one component of a thorough project management approach. These often also include communication plans, task schedules, detailed budgets, and risk assessments. A comprehensive project plan begins with a statement of work that clearly defines the project's goals and components, serving as a control for the remainder of the initiative.

Key components of a project scope statement.

A powerful project scope statement is a meticulously crafted document that brings clarity and direction to your project. While the specific details will vary, every effective scope statement includes several core components that define the project's boundaries and expectations:

Steps to create a project scope statement.

Now that you understand how a project scope statement helps avoid pitfalls and misunderstandings, you may want to create one for yourself. Even if you’ve never made a project scope statement before, there’s no reason to feel overwhelmed. These documents can be easy to put together once the key elements to include are defined.

Of course, no two projects are the same, so project managers should expect variations in what might be applicable when getting started. Keep in mind that these documents are designed to clearly define deliverables and expectations in a way that’s both actionable and achievable. When crafting a project scope statement, consider the following:

1. Overview — providing a synopsis.

Starting with a summary of the project can help everyone understand what is needed from them and what is expected in the end. This can also be an excellent opportunity to outline objectives for smaller milestones that lead to broader goals in a clear and actionable way.

Project needs are often itemized here to outline what should be included and what should be left out. Project managers can use this section to define the objectives and goals, and create a clear, one-sentence statement that outlines the initiative's purpose.

Let’s take the example of a company working on a website redesign for an ecommerce client. A sample project scope statement could be “The redesigned website will provide customers with faster and easier access to products while offering value-added content to increase session duration and reduce bounce rate.”

From here, the project’s detailed objectives could include the following:

2. Governance — attributing responsibility.

With the general concept established, stakeholders and individual contributors can be assigned to specific roles. This step helps detail who will be working on the project and who will be responsible for reviewing and approving various deliverables.

Consider each objective outlined in the overview. The project manager should indicate who is involved with or accountable for each at a high level. Let’s use our previous example of the website redesign:

A graph shows an example of the responsibilities of redesigning a website.

3. Approach — outlining steps.

For everyone to contribute effectively to the plan, they’ll need to know their exact responsibilities and tasks, as well as their significance in the bigger picture. Reiterate the project scope statement and then outline what is and is not included in the scope. It can be helpful to redefine the measures of success to align tasks within or outside the scope itself.

In the case of the website redesign project, the approach could include reminders for the creative team to use the existing brand guidelines and confine their efforts to working within those boundaries. While a new website is in scope, a rebrand is not.

Another point of clarification could be around the measures for success. The project manager could define that while improving traffic figures is crucial, increasing the total number of sales for the client is not a requirement of this project.

4. Assumptions — expected risks and rewards.

Every good project manager knows projects are bound to encounter obstacles. To help alleviate challenges, incorporate predictions of what is likely to sidetrack progress and provide recommendations on how to avoid these issues.

These considerations could range from allocating the right resources to the project to ensure no one is shorthanded to reviewing PTO requests to maintain continuous coverage. Risk factors could include anything from personnel availability to the budget set forth by a client. To prevent conflict before it arises, clearly indicate any potential risks to the team and external clients.

5. Deliverables — defining success.

Clearly defining the deliverables can help reiterate the overall definition of project success. Return to the original project scope statement and evaluate what can be used to objectively and measurably demonstrate a job well done.

For example, the project manager could address this from several angles. When it comes to key performance indicators (KPIs), they can work with the client to establish baselines for session duration and bounce rate, determining what improvements will define success over a set period after the new website is launched. They can also work with the internal team to define the parameters for what a thorough, on-brand redesign entails and how different the website should ultimately look.

Project scope statement example.

Let’s apply this format to our example and create a project scope statement of our own.

A graph shows an example of a project scope statement.

Best practices for writing scope statements.

While every scope statement will look different, there are some best practices that project managers can follow to ensure their documents are as effective as possible.

The importance of project scope statements.

Project scope statements provide clear and immediate value to managers and stakeholders by eliminating the uncertainty that can arise from project management. Rather than wondering about tasks, everyone involved can work from clearly defined requirements and deadlines tied to direct outcomes.

A project scope statement provides a clear definition of a project's boundaries. It includes all the assumptions, responsibilities, requirements, constraints, milestones, and deliverables necessary to ensure the project's success.

The benefits of stating what the project scope is don’t stop with definitions. Instead, project managers, stakeholders, clients, and team members can benefit from a thoughtfully crafted Statement of Work (SOW) in several ways.

Project scope statements vs. other documents.

As vital as a statement of work can be to the project management process, it’s just one of many documents managers and stakeholders rely on. Here are some other project management documents that can help the process.

Project scope statement vs. project charter vs. statement of work.

While these three documents are foundational to project success, they serve distinct purposes and are typically created at different stages:

In essence, the project scope statement clearly defines the project's boundaries and deliverables. The project charter authorizes the project at a high level. The statement of work specifies the contractual and procedural specifics of how that scope will be delivered.

Start creating project scope statements.

Scope statements are a critical component of project management that can help keep work on track and within budget. While they can take a bit of time to create upfront, they are well worth it because they set important boundaries with clients and internal stakeholders to ensure that requirements and inclusions (or exclusions) are clear.

When you’re ready to start writing a scope statement, it can be helpful to consider the what and why of project management — what the project is, why it’s happening, why it’s essential, and what it will achieve. This will provide a good starting point for creating the rest of the scope statement when you’re ready for the how of project management; Adobe can help.

Workfront is enterprise work management software that connects work to strategy and drives better collaboration to deliver measurable business outcomes. Workfront helps you define goals, automate workflows, and manage assets, providing a centralized platform to manage your projects effectively.

Watch the overview video to find out how Workfront can help you manage the scope of your projects.

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