Attack of the Scope Creep

 

How do you avoid scope creep? It all starts with the project manager. It should be the PM’s responsibility to take the lead on controlling project scope. First, begin with setting the necessary expectations with the project steering committee. Get there buy-in on the project scope and approach.

The next step is to ask the project champion or a member from the steering committee to communicate the importance of controlling scope to the rest of the client team. The client team could include business unit leads, and the technical and functional implementation team. Equally important is to communicate the same message to your team as well. The client team and the implementation team should work under the same rules.

The next step is to determine requirements through JAD (Joint Application Design) sessions. Once the requirements are determined, assess them for complexity on these categories: Business Benefit (BB), Organizational Readiness (OR) and Technical Complexity (TC). Rank them as high, medium and low depending on some assumptions and situational characteristics. The table below illustrates some of the considerations to be taken into account when ranking.

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