By Krystine Kelly
Senior Project Manager
It’s a familiar story. A project seems destined for greatness in the planning phase but then somehow veers off course. First, the timeline slips. Then the budget balloons. Worst of all, the end result doesn’t deliver on its promise.
What happened? In a phrase: scope creep. Even if you’ve never heard the term before, its effects are likely all too familiar. Scope creep is created whenever a project expands beyond what was agreed upon at the start, either with your vendor or among your internal team. The results can be disastrous. That’s why striving to control scope creep should be a crucial part of shepherding your next project to launch.
What are the impacts of scope creep?
Though the degree of its impact can vary, scope creep will invariably hurt a project in at least 1 of 3 areas (and often all 3 at once):
- Cost
Each added request beyond the original scope of work (SOW) will require more effort—and more money—to complete, quickly putting your project over budget.
- Time
As with costs, every change to the SOW has the potential to create unintended consequences. For example, a modest change to one deliverable may necessitate pull-through updates to companion pieces in the project, causing a trickle-down effect that requires multiple timelines to be extended, often by weeks or even months.
- Quality
New requests mid-build often unintentionally conflict with, confuse, or even degrade the original vision of a project. For example, just a few add-ons may require additional companion changes that result in doubling or even tripling the length of a deliverable, making it unwieldy for users to complete in one sitting.
What causes scope creep—and how do you stop it?
Scope creep sounds sinister for a reason. This problem does indeed “creep” up on the unsuspecting team that, all too often, becomes aware of the issue only after it’s too late. To stop scope creep, it’s necessary to understand its common root causes and how to avoid such pitfalls. These include:
- A vague definition of the deliverable
Scope creep can happen when members of a team have conflicting conceptions of an ill-defined project. That’s why it’s essential to be precise in detailing each aspect of a deliverable from the start (eg, a 5-page, illustrated guide that will go through 2 rounds of review at each stage of development …).
- Not having a change management process
Changes mid-project will happen. Scope creep is exacerbated when the team does not have a system in place—a communications process linking key team members and/or a document that outlines the decision-making process—to flag each change and determine what effect it will have before proceeding.
- Requests with unintentional consequences
Like a snowball that sets off an avalanche, mid-project requests that appear to be small can have much larger, unexpected impacts. Before acting, it is essential to carefully and thoroughly think through each change request, if you want to avoid scope creep.
- Poor initial communication
When parameters on both the project and ways of working aren’t clearly communicated at the outset, scope creep can easily set in. Take time to set all expectations—with your vendor or across your team—up front, and then be sure to stay within these guardrails.
Your greatest asset when trying to stop scope creep
As a project manager (PM), much of my time each day is spent anticipating scope creep, heading it off at the pass, and mitigating its effects. I’m certainly not alone. Your PM—whether they are part of your team or with your vendor—can be your greatest asset when working to end the scope creep that threatens to derail your next great project. As your PM will attest, our role is focused on seeing the big picture, communicating effectively with all parties, and, most importantly, completing each project on time and on budget. This gives us the vantage and experience needed to identify and shut scope creep down before it causes a problem.
In fact, if I had to boil down all my advice here to a single axiom, it would be: Trust your PM. It might not be easy to hear us dissuade you from a change mid-project, but believe me, at the end of the day—when your project comes in on time, on budget, and as you envisioned it—you’ll be glad you did!
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Krystine Kelly brings more than 25 years of experience to her role as a senior project manager for Encompass. This includes extensive work within the pharmaceutical industry and as a credentialed Master Project Management Professional. Specializing in managing and directing top-performing leaders and their teams, Krystine leverages her expertise in client training, marketing, and event management to guide complex projects and portfolios to successful completion.
