Scope Creep - But Why Always | Project Management

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This is not some fictitious account but facts presented in the form of a case study. A project in the construction industry with a budget of $10 Million was overshot by 20%. One might wonder what would be the margin then, clearly marking the bottom-line in red.

Root of the problem

When the builder was questioned about the glaring rise in the overheads, that went way over the budget, "it cannot be reported as scope creep though it turned out eventually." Haven’t we heard that before? “Yes, we have. And before you ask, this is not my first project. I am an experienced hand and I speak from personal experience, and that’s why 20 percent might sound whopping to you, is inevitable to me.  You speak about creep, like a leaky water pipe.  Then imagine in a massive water plant, one spot in a particular pipe will call for a complete overhaul of the plumbing unit. Don’t assume there is a quick fix like some adhesive pasted to block the leak. That’s a layman’s understanding. What actually takes place is more complex and cumbersome. Assuming, this took away a major chunk of the work from completion, you are looking at lapse in work which translated in hours and converted in dollars and cents can lead to sever deficit financially diminishing the returns. So to identify the root cause can prove painfully expensive.

The lesson learned, amongst many, can be the plumbing factor – which we naturally pay more attention and extra-cautious in the next undertaking. Then unbeknown, in the next project there will be some other issue out of the blue – it can be a wiring issue, for all you know.

Forces beyond

Risk is inherent. No doubt about it. But the nature of risk? How about a team member falling sick? Or the work done by someone isn’t thoroughly checked and impacts the development made so far? Or natural calamity or a strike? These don’t constitute creep but do attribute to scope creep one way or the other. Assuming a team member falls sick and the deadline has to be met. Sometimes, driven by deadline pressure or closure on dependency, one tends to crosscut and aim for closure. There are some risks to be taken, which may not impact short-terms but make you pay with grave consequences in the long run. Well, that again is a risk. So creep need not necessarily be direct, straight and said forth.

Creep is not something that can be defined or confined to a particular category. At best it can be contained is not clichéd. Objectively assessing, that’s reality because every project closure will script its own ‘lessons learned’ and yet we observe failings in some form. Incredibly, some repeated; it may not be intentional or ignorant but things that’s possible to be overlooked as trivia can prove to be a thorn and troublesome.

To wrap it up, we would want every lesson learnt to be put into use after all what is knowledge without application. Furthermore, the client’s expectation of earning more for every penny needs to be professionally managed. Expect the customer to come up with last minute surprises, that is strictly out of scope but then you can’t say ‘no’ not wanting to offend. Hence one should draw the line somewhere without hurting either party involved. It’s a thin line that calls for a fine act. We don’t want scope creep – it just self-invites. That’s scope creep. I just gave you a long-winded definition."

Scope Creep Inevitable?

Inevitable? So there is no way out? There are ways to mitigate but Scope Creep control has everything to do with you.  We started with why is there scope creep always.  And also, we stated categorically that creep can be contained.

How do you contain scope creep? We will discuss the ways in our next posting. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas, suggestions, theories, or experience, please do share and educate our users.

Scope Creep – slippery slope

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(A personal account of the perils of scope creep)

As Jobs puts it ‘we can only connect the dots afterwards’. That’s the benefit of hindsight? Well, if you have that as foresight, it makes you a visionary. Las Vegas was just a desert till one guy redrew the map toasting success on the sand dunes, and Vegas couldn’t have been just conjecture then.

When I took over the reins, the project looked promising. Communications were open and the client very forthcoming in comments. One look at the team composition and my hopes were inflated: a trusted hand, a familiar figure and a total stranger, rest of the crew comprised of tester, Us Ex, web developer. The lead developer is more of a man-Friday as we have engaged in couple of projects and hence a tried and tested chap. It looked good and should have soared to great. We could spot the shore. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride!

We prepared the plan, sized the effort, scoped the requirement, and swung into action. The progress too was pretty much in line. We built a good rapport with the client and the stinkers were sporadic. The plan and progress almost matched with some slippage. A qualified tester got onboard and it was a shot in the arm. I had several sessions with the team and joint calls with client in understanding the requirement.

The long evenings, late nights, brainstorming sessions, soaring rhetoric and sizzling arguments, and not to miss the cat-fights, we saw it all as a team. The phone would suddenly scream followed by a volley of questions growing in decibel, and my team mate would politely hush her husband ‘I will be leaving in 5 minutes’. Remarkably, she taught me what I can never achieve no matter how much ever I aspire – that patience and politeness in answering an agitated call.  

Perplexingly the problems and posers kept piling, and from then on, we prioritized issues as critical, major and minor with color red, yellow and orange respectively. An open document was created and shared with client. And the bug count closely monitored with status reports both at start and end of day. The fixes left me vexed; flummoxed by failure after failure as I knew for sure that the bugs will be reopened.  I chewed my finger nails all the way to my knuckles and went bone dry when the count refused to climb down. We dragged out weary souls and worn-out soles day-in and day-after licking defeat in the hope that ‘we lost the battle but will win the war’.

The client is not to be blamed completely as for the team goofed up pretty bad inmanaging the scope. A little here and a little there and the result wasn’t scope creep but a bloated scope with too many ‘bells and whistles’. It wasn’t the foot in my mouth but the whole leg. Chewed more than we could swallow? It wasn’t time to wallow in self-pity. But I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the team; for myself and then DH Lawrence hit me hard where it hurts the most ‘I have never known a wild animal feel sorry for itself’. May be I am ‘domestic’ – heck, man is a social animal, if it can be used as a disclaimer. The client squeezing hard and the management make it clear about the climbing cost, the noose was tightening. The stakeholders had a simple mandate – the timeline. Problems and philosophy are a pair.When you muck-up big time, be prepared for your back to be blackened.But as they say if the progress is as per the plan, then there is something wrong with the plan. Then why plan? [we will discuss as a different thread]

 Tell me something, only Results count? Is it? I checked this quote by Jacoob Riis who, it seems, coined it for me.

When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before - Jacob Riis.

Results count but efforts can’t be discounted.

We narrowed down the action-items as in-scope’ and passed it around, armed ourselves with facts and figures as counterweight.  We managed to complete the project but not in the prospect and promise we had pinned our hopes, rather it was mixed-feeling of bitter-sweet that the final handover happened. Post the delivery, when we did the causal analysis, the scope creep sank our boat. Expectedly CRs (Change Request) were raised but they were either counted in as ‘courtesy’ or ‘cost-free’ who didn’t treat it binding as billable. 

It was a lesson learnt about clearly recording your scope and securing a sign-off on the deliverables and we became more conscious and cautious about the creep in succeeding projects. It was indeed a slippery slope!

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