Summary

Managing the scope of an application is one of the toughest challenges faced by every application development team. Doing so effectively requires reasonable estimating ability, negotiating skills, and some political savvy ”three commodities that are often rare in technical communities such as our software project team. However, failing to manage the scope is at best unprofessional, and at worst will likely lead to a terrible fate: missed expectations, unhappy customers, angry management, and real career challenges. Take this challenge into your team's hands and manage scope early and often. You will be glad you did.