Question

1. What is Scope creep? Give at least one example from your experience and/or from a article that you have read 2. Why is scope creep bad? How does it impact a project? 3. What are the causes of scope creep 4. Discuss how you can avoid scope creep.

Answer 1

Scope creep (also called requirement creep, or kitchen sink syndrome ) in project management refers to changes, continuous or uncontrolled growth in a project’s scope, at any point after the project begins.This can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered harmful.

EXAMPLE

The Denver International Airport is probably the biggest victim of scope creep in this blog post. It’s a prime example of poor communication between parties and of impossible timeframes and deadlines. The luggage handling system failed on a big scale principally due to four warnings from various associated parties all being ignored. Plus, key stakeholders, i.e. the airlines, weren’t involved in decisions. The set timeframes and deadlines were never going to be achieved. Out of these three real-world examples of scope creep, this one was easily the most expensive.

Scope creep is almost always a bad idea for everyone involved. It can derail the project, lead to arguments around cost and deliverables and even become a major cause of failure. And that’s something everyone wants to avoid, as ERP project failure is ugly. And expensive (for all concerned).

It is also why, at Verde, we have a Project Management Office, an assurance of price, scope and definitions, and a commitment to clear communication as part of our customer intimate approach.

CAUSES

There are a number of reasons why scope creep occurs that are fairly common with most projects, including:

• A documented Statement of Work (SOW) that is vague and undefined.
• Undocumented conversations and agreements directly between the client and team members.
• Attempting to add additional uncontrolled changes that haven’t been approved.
• Poor communication between team members, team leaders/project managers, clients, and stakeholders.
• Time frames and deadlines that are impossible to achieve.
• A change control process that isn’t flexible, or doesn’t exist at all.
• Lack of a project scope statement.

WAY TO AVOID

1. Know your project goals from the start

How can you keep your project within its scope, if you don’t know what that is in the first place?

Killing scope creep starts with your SOW. It’s true that the entire team still needs to keep the project on track, but it’s impossible to do that without understanding what the project is, what timelines are involved, who is responsible for what, and what the deliverables should look like.

  “If the team doesn’t agree on the big picture, then they certainly won’t agree on a single feature.”

The same thing goes for your entire project scope. Every team member should have a firm understanding of how each task relates to the bigger whole and how any last-minute changes might be a distraction or even counterproductive.

An SOW alone won’t always offer foolproof protection against scope creep. But it is absolutely essential for recognizing when scope creep is happening so you can stop it in its tracks.

2. Get serious about documenting requirements

One of the best project management skills out there is learning how to properly set requirements. In other words, being able to clearly define the timelines, budgets, and expectations of your team, company, and stakeholders.

While it can be nice to talk these requirements out, they need to be properly documented if you’re going to avoid scope creep. There are a few tools you can use here to help clarify your project requirements.

3. Create a change control process

While all of these tips so far have talked about ways to avoid scope creep, it’s naive to think that you’ll never have to deal with it.

As projects stretch out over days, weeks and even months, it’s unsurprising that some elements of the original SOW might change. In these cases, it’s important to have a change control process in place for reviewing and approving reasonable changes and then updating the SOW and workflow in Planio.

In project management, a change control process is your workflow for ensuring each proposed change is adequately defined, reviewed, and approved before making its way into your task list. In its simplest form, a change control process involves 5 steps:

1. Proposing the change. This is your process for how someone (a customer, teammate, or stakeholder) will suggest a change. It should include specifics such as a description, the expected benefits, and an action plan.
2. Summary of its impact. Next, you need to summarize the overall impact of this change, including the cost savings or benefit, impact on your schedule, new risks, and impact on other projects.
3. Decision. Now it’s time for your project decision-maker to decide whether to accept the change, accept it with special conditions, reject, or defer for later consideration.
4. Implementing the change. If a change is approved, it’s now your job to plan, schedule, and create a timeline for adding the change to the scope of your project.
5. Closing the change. Finally, once a change has been completed, you need to close the issue and move it into your next retrospective         

5.Use project management software to keep everyone on track

If you want to keep your project on schedule, your team focused, and everyone up-to-date, you need a project management tool. Not only will your project management tool help streamline the actual work you’re doing, but it will also help you identify all sorts of red flags that show you’re hitting scope creep.

Here are just a few examples of how you can use Planio to help reduce scope creep and keep your project on track.

First, task management in Planio helps you break large projects down into actionable tasks. This way everyone knows what specific tasks are assigned to them, what needs to be completed to hit your project milestones, as well as priorities and workflows.

Next, you can use built-in time tracking to log time spent on issues and tasks and compare it to your schedule and estimations. As a project manager, you can view a list of all tasks with their corresponding estimated and actual time spent on them to make sure nothing falls behind.

Lastly, Planio was made for Agile teams and makes it easy to do regular sprint planning and retrospectives. This way, you have a clear vision of how the project is progressing and what might be causing the scope to creep. With all your issues already in your product backlog, planning future sprints or project milestones is as easy as dragging and dropping them into a new sprint.