What is Scope Creep? Prevention

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What is Scope Creep? Prevention

🔥 Many problems related to managing project scope arise because the project team accepts informal requirements once the project starts executing. These requirements may sometimes come from important stakeholders, and most of the time the team feels they cannot refuse to include them.

SCOPE CREEP DEFINITION
This situation causes what is called "Scope Creep" or also "Requirement Creep": an undesirable project phenomenon in which excessive, ongoing, informal additions and/or changes in requirements are allowed without a proper process leading to a continuous or uncontrolled growth of a project's scope at any point after the project has begun. It happens when the project scope grows indefinitely and the team is incapable of managing it. This growth will likely cause problems with the time allotted for the project and/or with the budget assigned to it.

CAUSES OF SCOPE CREEP
Typically, scope creep is the result of:
- Lack of proper initial identification of the project objectives
- Lack of initial product versatility
- A weak project manager or executive sponsor
- Poor communication between parties
- Poor change control

HOW TO AVOID SCOPE CREEP?
The first thing you need to do is to formalize the process of asking for new features or product characteristics. It is very important to show all stakeholders that the project has a strict procedure for considering new requirements. You need to develop a form or some digital tool to register new requirements and communicate that you and our team will analyze these requirements very carefully. The decision whether to include or exclude a specific requirement will be made only by the team using a cost-benefit rationale. It is good practice to communicate this process and all tools associated with it in the kick-off meeting of the project.

⇨ Please share your ideas and experiences wrt scope creep...

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		1 Gandhi Heryanto Management Consultant, Indonesia
	Can we See Scope or Requirement Creep from a Positive Perspective? We can look at scope creep from 2 perspectives: that it is a sneaky enemy or that it is change. It could be that the change is caused by the environment, such as the crisis caused by Covid-19 that is happening now. If we see that as something that changes then how we manage change will affect the project - not the demand to change it. But if the demands for change are not clear then we can prevent them before they develop. Demands for change can be very beneficial for the project you are running. You could be more likely to fail if you only want stick to the plan that has been made. However, we all aim to have the project succeed in line with the goals and budget that must be achieved.

		1 Hans van Klooster senior product marketing manager, Netherlands
	Scope Creep: it is How do You Deal with It Out of many years of experience, most of the time, scope creep happens because the preparation was not good with B2C and B2B projects. Sometimes you need to spent a lot of time and effort before you start a project, including risk management. Your project will be easier if your preparation is very thorough. Although there should be a certain balance there; you should also not overdo the preparation. I agree that change may happen because of a changing "world", but even then good (marketing) research may limit the need for this. But most importantly I agree you need to handle change requests, and never just let them happen.

		2 Anonymous
	Scope Creep is per Definition Always Negative @Gandhi Heryanto: Of course changes to the project scope are not necessarily a bad thing. They could indeed be changes from outside the project (e.g., Covid) or changes in customer demands. But I think you'll agree that "scope creep" is per definition always a negative term. After all, it is "an UNDESIRABLE project phenomenon in which EXCESSIVE, ongoing, INFORMAL additions and/or changes in requirements are allowed WITHOUT A PROPER PROCESS.

		1 Sridhar Gopal Management Consultant, India
	Experiences with Managing Scope Creep Scope creep is a part of every project I learned this rather hard way. It was the beginning of my stint as an IT entrepreneur in the late 90s when we had taken up our first assignment to build an ERP for a pharmaceutical  company. In our enthusiasm of making the best of the situation we said "Yes" to many of the requests beyond SRS and the 8 month implementation time extended to over 12 months. This escalated the costs and other infrastructure issues. Finally I dealt with this issue more on a 'personal' relationship and closed the project with a minimum loss we could bear. We learned, that projects should be broken to bits and bytes and we should estimate a possible creep in the modules and before the sign off establish whats a 'no cost', minor and major change that may come up and these changes would be implemented on conditions that come up with it. A strong business analyst/manager is a must to minimize effects of "creep management". Hope this addressed the said topic.