Progressive Elaboration

Progressive Elaboration: The concept of Progressive Elaboration is a third characteristic of a project after "temporary" and "unique product, service or result". What it means is, the project starts with a broad scope description and we see further elaboration as the project moves forward. The project team will be levied on the project scope as they receive the full set of deliverables and objectives to be accomplished.

At the start of the project there will be the broadly defined scope. Think of this as a funnel, as we move further down or further into the project as the funnel gets smaller. Just as the scope is more tightly developed until we have complete understanding of the work to be done. We can see that visually in the above figure, as the project progresses we can see the definition of the scope becomes focused. We have started with a broad set of deliverables, then additional details was added, and finally we drill down the result in the final scope of the project

Progressive elaboration is something that is planned and done with a purpose. There should be a reason to project to proceed in this manner else we will encounter something called Scope Creep.
The progressive elaboration is not considered to be Scope Creep as it is done with coordinated and planned intent.

Scope Creep means the additional scope is added to the project after the project's objectives has been defined. Typically it affects the project's cost, resources and time. This is one of the top reasons that the projects frequently are over budgeted, they missed the deadlines or they failed.

Examples of Progressive Elaboration:
Projects where research plays important role in determining the project scope