Baseline a Project

Once the entire project plane is complete, that is the budget, schedule, and scope are agreed to by the project sponsor and management; this is known as the baseline. the baseline is used to monitor and control the project throughout the execution phase, at the very least the documents that are baselined are:

• the Scope Statement
• the Requirements document
• the WBS
• the schedule
• the time-phased budget

Once a project it baselined the only way to make modifications to it is through the "Change Control Process" that was defined in the {charter???}, this is to help insure that the Stakeholders expectations and requirements are met. by following the "Change control process" any changes are reviewed and agreed with by the stakeholders.

Scope Creep vs Scope Change

Scope creep is when requirements work their way into your project through a back channel that is they do not go through the "Change control process" and as such the project scope, budget or schedule do not get adjusted putting the project at risk of failure, whereas scope change does go through the "Change control process" and thus all stakeholders are aware of the change and how it will affect the scoped, budget and delivery of the project.

it is essential that any change to the project, scope, budged or schedule is captured and approved before it is implemented. No changes are allowed to be made to the project baseline without written notice that is approved, if approved this notice is called a "Change Notice" and it is a formal proposal to modify any document, deliverable or the schedule baseline.