In project management, projects can easily expand and get out of control, making it difficult to meet deadlines. This is called “scope creep” (“Scope”: new objectives and needs. “Creep”: sneak up on you) (Smith & the Mind Tools Team, n.d.). In scope creep there is continuous growth or uncontrolled changes in the scope of the project (Kerzner, 2013). This usually happens when the scope is not clearly controlled documented or defined. Scope creep impedes the success of the project. Therefore, it is vital for the project manager to define clearly the scope of the project at the beginning in accordance with the business requirements analysis and closely manage it (Kerzner, 2013).
I read about this project in the United Kingdom (UK) that suffered terribly from scope creep. The NHS had a huge Information Technology (IT) project for computerization of patient’s medical records (De Sousa, 2009). It involved linking about three hundred hospitals with about thirty thousand local general practitioner doctors at a cost of four point six billion dollars. With some of the best minds in project management, this could have been easily delivered. However, four years later the project had cost twenty-five point four billion dollars and was nowhere near being launched (De Sousa, 2009). Scope creep is very common in information system development projects (Kerzner, 2013). Most of the IT projects in the healthcare industry in the UK have suffered from scope creep. They have usually failed to meet the users’ needs, gone massively over budget or have not been delivered. This is because there is no documentation of accurate requirements, and the project scope is not properly managed (De Sousa, 2009).
Scope creep is not stopped in many of these projects but it is included in the original project scope and then the time schedule is pushed forward (De Sousa, 2009). Projects in the UK public sector increasing their budget is not an issue since funds are always easily available. In the private sector, scope creep still happens. However, they do not have the tolerance, budget or time for scope creep. Therefore, project managers who allow scope creep to get out of hand are fired or replaced, and their careers may take forever to recover. No matter how hard project managers try, there is still a probability that scope creep will happen in a project (Kerzner, 2013). It is crucial that project managers master soft skills to control and manage scope creep when it happens.
Basically, there are four ways of managing scope creep: good initial planning and estimating, strict adherence to the project management process, active management of expectations and establishing a good relationship with project stakeholders (De Sousa, 2009). Change control or change management systems are required to restore the balance among key elements of a project such as time, budget and performance (Project Smart, 2015). In the real world, the project manager has to prioritize on which of these three elements compromising on will be least damaging to the project. In change management, the project manager has to prioritize which element is most important (the driver) in achieving the project goal. Scope creep is controlled by ensuring that the driver constraint is satisfied, and hence the project goal is accomplished (Project Smart, 2015).
References
De Sousa, S. (2009). Scope Creep Example and Managing and Controlling Scope Creep. My-Project-Management-Expert.com. Retrieved from http://www.my-project-management-expert.com/what-is-scope-creep.html>.
Kerzner, R. (2013). Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: A guide to measuring and monitoring project performance. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Project Smart. (2015). Managing Scope Creep: Don't Gold Plate My Project! projectsmart.co.uk. Web. 02 July 2015. <http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/managing-scope-creep.php>.
Smith, Caroline and the Mind Tools Team. (n.d.). Scope Control: Avoiding Too Many Changes in Projects. mindtools.com. Web. 02 July 2015. <http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_76.htm>.
