Scope Management - How Projects Result in Scope Creep?

Scope creep represents uncontrolled changes to a project scope. Scope creep is also called as focus creep, requirement creep and feature creep. This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled.

Typically, scope creep includes addition of new features, functionalities or products to the project scope without corresponding increases in resources, schedule, or budget. As a result, the project team risks drifting away from its original purpose, timeline and budget. This generally tends to occur when new features are added to product designs that have already been approved.

Based on my experience, I find the following to be the primary causes of scope creep:

1. Poor Project Management: Poor control of the project by the Project Manager is one of the primary causes for uncontrolled shift in the project scope. Ineffective communications and inability to establish proper project expectations could lead to drastic scope creep.

2. Poor Requirements Analysis: Clients don’t always know what they want and can only provide a vague idea. The typical "I’ll know it when I see it" syndrome. Refinements often come during the latter stages of the project when users, analysts, developers and project team have gained more experience with the business functions and transactions.

3. Not Involving the Stakeholders Early Enough: Thinking you know what the users want or need is a serious mistake. It is important to involve them in both the requirements analysis and design phases.

4. Underestimating the Complexity of the Project: Many projects run into problems because they are new in an industry and have never been done before. Nobody knows what to expect, there are no lessons learned and no one to ask. “I can do this by reading the manual” attitude could cause major project risks.

5. Lack of Change Control: You can expect there to be a degree of scope creep in most projects, therefore it is important to design and establish a process to manage these changes. A simple process of document, consider, approve and resource must be implemented.

6. Gold Plating: This term is given to the practice of exceeding the scope of a project in the belief that value is being added. These changes inevitably consume time and budget and are not guaranteed to increase client satisfaction. The project team must focus on efforts that provide business value and that are crucial for the project success.