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Progressive elaboration is the principle of steadily adding detail to the project plan as more information becomes available.

Quick reference

Progressive Elaboration

Progressive elaboration is the principle of steadily adding detail to the project plan as more information becomes available.

When to use 

Projects with high levels of uncertainty on some aspect of the project should progressively elaborate that aspect. The uncertainty could be due to many aspects of the project requirements or plans. Examples include increased insight with respect to resource availability, the selection and use of technology, or reaction to customer and stakeholder input.

Instructions

Progressive elaboration is not the same as scope creep –which is the addition of fundamentally new requirements. Rather it is the refinement of general requirements, making them more specific as the project progresses. This is sometimes referred to as spiral management or rolling wave management.

  • Begin the project with general requirements and a general plan for the areas of the project that will be progressively elaborated.  Note: You do not need to progressively elaborate everything.  If a portion of the project can be planned in detail, do so.
  • Establish points in the project when you will reassess the project plan and refine it based upon the availability of new information. This often occurs at the completion of a major milestone or phase.
  • At the refining points, use the new information to add detail and clarity to project requirements and plans

Progressive elaboration of requirements documents

Often a challenge on projects is to get clear and precise requirements. The requirements documents can be progressively elaborated. The example below is based upon a reliability requirement.

  • Start with the category of requirement and provide either an upper or lower bound based upon a worst-case scenario with a target of the desired level. For instance, our reliability requirement is at least 2,000 hours of use, but our target is 5,000 hours. The project team is not willing to sign up for 5,000 hours because they do not know if the technology can support that level. The previous product was at only 2,000 hours.
  • As the project progresses, more information about the technology or approach is learned and we can now refine the requirement based upon what is achievable.  The reliability requirement is now a minimum of 4,000 hours plus or minus 500 hours.
  • With further design and testing, we now know what our solution is capable of and we are able to set the requirement at 4,200 hours.

Notice that at each step of progressive elaboration we stayed within the bounds that were set at the previous step. If you want to go outside the bounds of the previous step, it would force a requirements change which may be a project change. Notice the final target, while below 5,000 hours is still far above 2,000 hours.

Definition

Progressive Elaboration:  “The iterative process of increasing the level of detail in a project management plan as greater amounts of information and more accurate estimates become available.” PMBOK® Guide

This definition is taken from the Glossary of the Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute, Inc., 2017.

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  • 00:01 Hi, I'm Ray Sheen.
  • 00:02 And I'd like to talk with you about another aspect of project planning,
  • 00:07 a concept referred to as progressive elaboration.
  • 00:10 The Project Management Body of Knowledge, the PMBOK Guide,
  • 00:15 defines progressive elaboration as the iterative process of increasing the level
  • 00:20 of detail in a project management plan as greater amounts of information and
  • 00:25 more accurate estimates become available.
  • 00:29 This principle is at the core of iterative, incremental, and
  • 00:32 adaptive project life cycles.
  • 00:34 Determining at the time of project initiation that the project will be
  • 00:38 progressively elaborated will dictate a certain type of project management
  • 00:43 methodology.
  • 00:43 We start off with a basic plan.
  • 00:45 As we learn more, we are able to add details to the plan.
  • 00:48 We may have a better understanding of what's necessary to achieve the project
  • 00:53 goals or estimates of the project work.
  • 00:55 What we learn in the early phases of the project help us to refine the later
  • 00:59 phases.
  • 01:00 Let me be clear, we're not talking about changing the scope or the goals and
  • 01:04 the deliverables of the project, they're still the same.
  • 01:08 We're talking about having a better understanding of a workable approach to
  • 01:12 achieve those goals and objectives.
  • 01:14 By refining the plan, we can increase the likelihood of a successful project.
  • 01:19 Early assumptions are improved with knowledge when we have a clearer
  • 01:23 understanding of the risks.
  • 01:25 Let me illustrate this point.
  • 01:27 Imagine that we have this huge development project with a tremendous
  • 01:31 amount of uncertainty.
  • 01:33 We know the project goals, but we don't know the best path to get there.
  • 01:37 We decide to manage the project with a progressive elaboration approach.
  • 01:42 So we will use a phased approach, either iterative or incremental.
  • 01:46 In the first phase, we define the boundaries.
  • 01:49 Because of this definition, we're able to eliminate some risks and
  • 01:53 focus our effort on finding a path that is likely to be successful.
  • 01:57 In our next phase, we create a good product and business operations concept.
  • 02:02 Again, this reduces the risk because there are some risks that are eliminated.
  • 02:06 Also, we have a better understanding of the concept.
  • 02:09 Early assumptions can now be validated or modified and
  • 02:13 our project estimates are much better.
  • 02:17 We continue to the next phase and we now have a design that's done.
  • 02:21 All the technical considerations of the project have been completed and analyzed.
  • 02:25 This lets us do a much better job of focusing on the remaining project goals.
  • 02:31 And finally, we complete the testing and now make sure everything is ready to go.
  • 02:34 The goals never changed, but our approach becomes better aligned with success.
  • 02:39 Each phase reduces the remaining uncertainty and risk on the project.
  • 02:43 It's important that we are consciously doing progressive elaboration as soon as
  • 02:48 practical in a project.
  • 02:50 You may be thinking, why bother, I'll just start working and
  • 02:54 fix anything that goes wrong whenever it happens.
  • 02:56 Well, progressive elaboration helps us to build project performance and
  • 03:01 manage the project risk.
  • 03:02 And I want to refine things as soon as practical because the cost of making
  • 03:07 changes, even improvements changes late in a project go up dramatically.
  • 03:11 Progressive elaboration can save money on projects with high uncertainty by
  • 03:16 helping us to make the needed refinements and changes as soon as practical.
  • 03:20 Let me share one best practice for
  • 03:22 applying progressive elaboration on technical projects.
  • 03:26 Do this to manage requirements performance levels.
  • 03:29 I establish a target for requirements with a tolerance band that shrinks
  • 03:34 during the development time of the project.
  • 03:37 Technical projects often have a difficult or
  • 03:40 impossible task of setting performance targets for systems that don't exist.
  • 03:45 The technology is so new, no one knows what it will do or
  • 03:48 the users can't agree on a requirement until they actually can see it in service.
  • 03:53 I establish a target performance level and
  • 03:56 then place an uncertainty band around that target.
  • 03:59 Think of it like a large minimum and maximum tolerance condition.
  • 04:04 The project team works to create a design that is compatible with that zone of
  • 04:08 performance.
  • 04:09 They don't need to worry about performance outside of that band.
  • 04:14 As the project progresses, a better understanding of the technical performance
  • 04:18 and design information becomes available.
  • 04:21 That tolerance band can begin to shrink around a value that is
  • 04:25 an acceptable level to stakeholders and acceptable in performance.
  • 04:30 Finally, as the design is frozen, the requirement is set.
  • 04:34 There's enough information for
  • 04:35 the stakeholders to reach an agreement on a realistic performance level.
  • 04:40 The principle of progressive elaboration allows a project team to manage
  • 04:44 uncertainty in a controlled manner.
  • 04:46 Build this principle into your project plan to reduce risk and
  • 04:53 help the project team and stakeholders understand
  • 04:58 how the project goals will be achieved.

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