Managing Scope Creep

My Personal Example of a Scope Creep Project

When my children set out to re-design their bedrooms a few years back for a more grown up look, my daughter got her room done in two weekends on the theory that she fast tracked only her most desired changes. Unwittingly, she followed Dr. Stolovitch’s advice:  “make a list of all the different activities, prioritized them as high, medium or low, and don’t try to be perfect”(Stolovitch, n.d.a).  My son, on the other hand, let scope creep happen as he considered too many options to realistically implement and thus, his room was not renovated for nearly a year.  

What specific scope creep issues occurred?

Some form of scope creep occurs where either more tasks are added to the project along the way, or “Parkinson’s Law [takes affect which] states that work will expand to fill the amount of time allotted” (Portny et al., 2008, p. 166).  My son really did not plan well for the project and made the false assumption that his resources (aka mom, dad and their money) would be always available and unlimited. He had also never undertaken such a big project of such personal importance before.  After all, this was going to be his personal statement – his bedroom redo.  He generally fell into an overall feeling of caution and chaos so commonly experienced by newcomers to project management.  He soon figured out that, not money necessarily, but “time is the scarcest resource” (Stolovitch, n.d.b) when he just couldn’t always pin his parents down to go to Home Depot or Walmart for this or that.

How did you or other stakeholders deal with those issues at the time?

He actually resented my daughter for her rapid results and immediately claimed that she had been favored with more of our time to get things done.  We explained to him that we had initially been on the ready for him too, if only he had created a solid plan upon which we could take immediate action.  We then spent a lot of time planning with our son, which turned out to be a valuable experience for all of us, but it didn’t progress the bedroom makeover much.  Well, there was the light switches, the trim, the paint colors, the line designs.  He was paralyzed by the details and the plethora of options and decisions to be made, but we let him muddle through it all on his own.  All we did was taxi him to his requested shopping destinations when time allowed and pulled out the credit card. He ended up with a tri-colored blue, striped room with mirror accents and a black ceiling!  Ugh!  But he liked it and it was finally finished in about 12 months.

What could you have done to better manage these issues and control the scope of the project better?

As parents (aka: the boss) we could have established more defined parameters for our son including a clear time table within in which he could focus his decisions and activities more rapidly. For our son’s part, he should have established a clear vision of the project for himself from the beginning to include anticipating those obstacles along the way.  He eventually learned some valuable communication strategies during this project and ultimately inspired us with his negotiation skills.  For both children, however, my husband and I knew to make one major contingency plan: we “set time and money aside for obstacles” (Rekom, n.d.).

References

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008).

Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.  Hoboken, NJ:

John  Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Rekom,V. (n.d.). Practitioner voices: Planning for contingencies presented for Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_551248_1%26url%3D

Stolovitch. (n.d.a). Managing projects presented for Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_551248_1%26url%3D

Stolovitch. (n.d.b). Creating a project schedule presented for Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_551248_1%26url%3D