A few months back I attended a local PMI chapter seminar. While I was having a conversation with other professionals, this topic arose: “Are project plan and project management plan the same?”

This discussion led us to some interesting discoveries, which I am going to share, along with my research on the topic.

During our conversation, we concluded that there was no standard difference between the project plan and project management plan.

The organization you work for determines the difference. They may decide to stick with only one term, both terms may be used as synonyms of each other, or they can refer to different types of plans.

Projects are undertaken to deliver a product, service, or result. It will be difficult to achieve your objective if you don’t understand both the project and product scope. In project management, you will find many important concepts vital to complete your project with minimal obstacles. Among these terms and concepts, project scope and product scope stand out.

Project scope depends entirely on the product scope. You must understand the product scope to define the project scope. These are the most important concepts in project management. I have noticed that many professionals incorrectly use these terms synonymously.

I saw a related question posted in a PMP forum a few days ago. Someone was asking for clarification on the differences between project scope and product scope. There were many replies, however some were incomplete, and a few of them were wrong. It seemed like the posters were more concerned with supporting their own opinions.