Sanjay KumarProject Manager| KritiKal Solutions India
Why do most of the start-ups, some time established organisation practices gold platting and scope creep?
What must a PM should do to stop these type of practice? Saving Changes...
Effective requirements management by BAs with support from the PM, coaching and educating the team, picking the right life cycle approach based of the project's complexity, disciplined project change control and techniques such as establishing acceptance criteria or Definitions of Done can all help to reduce the likelihood and impact of these challenges.
These organisation general have the budget that allows them to preform these practises and have a use it or lose it budget practises. Future proofing becomes over scoping and gold plated solutions and scope creep also follows this principle. Ultimately having a Project Manger who is able to focus minds to deliver solutions that the organisation really needs is the situation that you wan to have you Project Management Office in. Also lack of experience in dealing with a Project lifecycle is one contributing factor. Having well define requirement that are agreed upon and sign off upon by each stakeholder and project sponsor that meets the project objectives stated in the Project Management documentation is one approach that could be adopted. Saving Changes...
Ganesh KumarProgram ManagerBangalore., Karnataka, India
Hi Sanjay
Accept it or not, it’s a necessary evil. Not sure if PM’s are keen to stop this practice, they would use this as a bargaining chip. Saving Changes...
Wade HarshmanScrum Master| GDITIndianapolis, In, United States
I thought PMI's code of ethics specifically forbid gold plating, but I don't see it. Am I missing it, or is it not there?
https://www.pmi.org/about/ethics/code
Regardless, Sanjay is correct that a lot of gold plating comes from small businesses and start-ups. An established business with a busy schedule does not have time for unfunded scope. A new start-up not only has the time, they might use the opportunity for innovation or even just practice.
Start-ups also need to promote their brand. If a new construction company gets a kitchen remodel project and goes above and beyond, that customer will show off their new kitchen and tell everyone who did it. That additional scope becomes a marketing tool.
Project Managers at start-ups should not be a part of this gold-plating. We should define our scope/quality, budget, and schedule and plan accordingly. But there may be times when your project team voluntarily does the additional work, and it may not be your role to stop them. Saving Changes...
In no certain terms, a start up is trying to gain market share. In doing so, the organization through its BA will want to show the new customer base what their organization is capable of doing. The Project Manager must first understand the business strategy and be hand in hand with the BA through the bid phase. Likewise, the PM should ensure that the BA is a strategic stakeholder throughout project execution.
If this is the strategy of the startup, then the PM should politic for a more experienced project team where their efficiencies and experience will not detract away from the budget. The PM should finally have a very strict and defined change management plan to guard against scope creep. Scope Creep should not be acceptable in any circumstance. Saving Changes...
Aejaz ShaikhPM I| Alyx Technologies India Pvt LtdPune, Maharshatra, India
Hi Sanjay,
My take is Gold Plating is no harm provided it is not eating into your budget and time. As correctly said earlier it is necessary evil. But also exhibits to your clients the extra mile you are taking for customer delight.
Scoop creep is an unnecessary evil which will eventually eat into your budget and time line. It is here PM should be more watchful vis-a-vis the requirements and the project deliverables. Scope Creep should in all the case must be avoided. Saving Changes...
George FreemanThought Leader | Author | Architect| Florida, United States
Only in a perfect project do we have the absence of change, and since there is no perfect project, we have the need for a project manager. To look at it another way; if projects were perfect, we would essentially only need a "project organizer" who coordinated the setup of the project and then went on to do the same for another project - after all, the project would guide itself due to the perfect planning that prevented the possibility of change.
As Kiron stated, we use controls and techniques to "reduce" the likelihood and impact of change. In my opinion this is out highest value-add to our customers; why - because we recognize the "nature of the beast" and embrace change recognizing its needed to meet the objectives and goals of the project (as perfection does not exist).
Bottom Line: Although we get worn down by excessive change in our practices, we need to keep perspective and recognize we would not likely have a job (or at least our jobs would look quite different) if change was not the norm. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
There is something the PMBOK have to incorporate (in my humble opinion) which is critical to understand and do not fail when you try to perform project management (in implicit or explicit way and following a way too like PMI, IPMA, GPM,etc): the organization life cycle. When organizations are in the phase of growing forget about to think in other thing than make money. This will impact everything you do inside the organization. So, is not about to avoid gold platting or scope creep. Is about to maintain it under control where control means you know the risks but you have the strategy to deal with them Saving Changes...
You can control scope creep, to some extent, with effective scope change management practices and communicating with your team. Gold plating is harder because you may not know about it until it is done, and it can be even more difficult to stop if it the customer likes what is done. It really comes down to team discipline. Everyone needs to be on board and disciplined enough to not gold plate or allow unapproved scope changes.
Understanding the root cause of why these things are happening in your organization would be the first step to reducing them. Saving Changes...
Community Champion
