“The entire and total purpose of a project is to develop, build, and deliver a predefined thing. How will one do this? What is the plan to acquire that thing?” — T.M. Rahauhn, PE, PMP
We know who wants the project and why, what they want us to create, and how good it has to be. Now, we have to establish how we’re actually going to create those deliverables, along with determining what resources it’ll take to do it. Welcome to Step 5: Establish Scope Acquisition Approach.
Every project is about creating or providing some kind of deliverable, or scope, whether that’s a product, a service, or a result. Knowing what we’re supposed to create is critical, but so is knowing how we’re going to create it. This step comes after scope definition (Step 3) and quality requirements (Step 4), but before schedule and budget (Steps 7 and 8). You can’t settle on how to build something until you know what it is and how good it has to be. And you can’t build a schedule to create it or estimate its costs until you know the acquisition approach: in-house build, off-the-shelf purchase, or bespoke contract. Schedule and budget are downstream of acquisition plans.
Step 5 is where we decide, element by element: build it, buy it, or contract it out. It’s also where we establish QA methods, aimed at minimizing the chances a deliverable falls short in the first place, and separately, QC plans, which spell out how we’ll actually test and accept what comes back against the criteria we established in Step 4. Step 5 is also where we figure out what resources (labor, equipment, and materials) the chosen approaches will take. Here’s why the step is so critical:
Scope and quality criteria won’t build themselves. The make vs. buy question is the first time we propose an actual method to acquiring the deliverables. Step 5 is where we decide, per WBS element, whether the scope is to be built in-house, purchased off the shelf, or contracted out, and each path carries a different set of resources, a different series of tasks and activities (and durations), a different cost structure, and a separate set of risks. It also sets us up for Step 6, where we establish how we’re going to perform, measure, change, and status the work.
Step 5 defines your team requirements. Resource planning establishes who and what will be needed, along with who’s accountable for what; this is the backbone for everything we create in Steps 6 through 8. Oh, and if we’re going to need specialized tooling, facilities, or other equipment, this step helps us identify those things, too.
Acceptance plans can be addressed. QA plans go to work minimizing the chances that a deliverable ever falls short of the criteria we established in Step 4, and QC plans spell out how we’ll actually test and verify it against that bar before we can accept it. Both are part of establishing an acquisitions strategy.
Choosing an acquisitions approach allows us to build the schedule and the budget. A contracted item and an in-house build have completely different activity sequences (tasks, logic, lead times, resource needs, durations, approval gates, and so on) and completely different cost structures: labor rates versus contract pricing versus procurement overhead. We can’t establish and sequence Step 7 activities or estimate Step 8 costs credibly until we know which path each deliverable will take.
It helps identify significant risks. Supply chains, vendor reliability, and resource availability become visible risks only once we’ve asked, “How are we creating and providing this?” They won’t get identified if the question never gets asked.
You can know exactly what you’re building and exactly how good it has to be, and still have no project, because nobody’s decided who’s going to build it. Step 5 is at the heart of that decision.