Please elaborate …. Please proceed

“Why does the Project Charter and Project Scope Statement contain different information?”
“We have just given that information. Isn’t it just repetitive?” Are we wasting our time?
Excellent questions.
You might feel like you’re repeating yourself when you create project management deliverables. You might feel that way. But you are also not. Confused? Let’s look at progressive elaboration.
You don’t know what you don’t know when you start your project. You need to start with some basic information. For example:
* This project aims to improve customer service by offering customer service 24 hours a days, 7 days a semaine.
You might have strong ideas about how to achieve the above given that you are familiar with your industry and organization. Your organization may be looking to change things up and do things differently. How can you tell?
Ask questions! Ask your project sponsor and key stakeholders about their plans for customer support. You can expand on the purpose statement that was used in creating a business case, or a proposal for a project. You might learn more as you write the charter.
* This project is intended to improve customer experience by offering customer service 24 hours a days, 7 days a săptămână to existing account holders.
Now that you know more, your previous understanding has been expanded upon. This is progressive elaboration at the office. This might be enough to create a Project Charter to announce the proposed project.
Next, you and your team will discuss how to provide customer service 24 hour a day, 7/7.
* You can hire additional customer service representatives to open up the phone lines to customers 24 hours a days, 7 days a semaine.
All of the above could be used to provide customer service for existing account holders 24 hours a days, 7 days a săptămână. Which approach will you choose?
After further discussion with your sponsor and stakeholders, you discover that they never intended to provide a customer concierge service. They are also not comfortable with the idea of paying extra for customer service representatives. They don’t think a text-based service is sufficient. It becomes clear that regardless of the method used, humans will still be required to provide the service. To reduce costs associated with hiring staff or overtime, the solution will include a text message-based solution that includes a FAQ area and an online customer support question forum. There will be no more than two employees per shift.
Progressive elaboration is a way to go from a simple statement or idea about customer service to defining who gets this extra level of service. Now you are defining how.
As you work through the project, you will have more information about what you are doing. Additional information is included in each formal deliverable that outlines the purpose of the project. You can expect fewer changes once the scope statement has been signed off. You might end up with scope creep. This is a great topic for another day.