Senior IS Project Manager| Baycare Health SystemsClearwater, Fl, United States
As Project Managers we try to manage a project's scope using several tools and methods such as creating a project charter and WBS and gaining approval from the project sponsor. Have you ever had a project that suffered from scope creep and did this impact your project's deliverables, schedule, or budget?
Saving Changes...
Sort By:
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Scope creep is rarely a failure of tools. It is usually a failure of decisions.
In most projects I have seen, the charter and the WBS exist, but the real problem appears later. Changes are accepted informally, trade-offs are not made explicit, and no one pauses to ask what will be displaced in time, cost, quality or risk. Scope grows because the system silently allows it.
What makes the difference is not saying “no” to change, but governing change well. Every scope change should trigger three explicit questions. What value does this add. What is the cost of delay or displacement. Who is accountable for the decision. When those questions are consistently asked, scope creep turns into conscious scope evolution.
When they are not, the impact is predictable. Compressed schedules, eroded margins, stressed teams, and deliverables that technically meet requirements but miss the original intent. Scope creep hurts projects less because scope changes, and more because decisions are made implicitly instead of deliberately. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
If you have a change management process in place then scope creep is not a problem. Saving Changes...
Program Manager, PPM&PMO Specialist.| Coppel, Mexico.Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico
No in my case, I have been very careful to avoid scope creep by strictly implementing a Change Control process.
Whenever a change is requested, I make sure it is formally analyzed to reflect its impact on all other constraints, such as the schedule and budget. By ensuring that every change is approved and documented, I protect the project's integrity and keep the deliverables aligned with the original goals without unexpected surprises. Francisco Saving Changes...
Program Manager| HARPER SRLSanto Domingo / Distrito Nacional, Dominican Republic
In my case, most of my projects are agile, so I don’t usually talk about formal WBS or charters. The problem still shows up the same way. Scope changes when adjustments are accepted without making the trade-offs explicit. In agile, I don’t really call it scope creep, it’s implicit decisions. When no one pauses to ask what goes in, what comes out, and why, the impact shows up later in timelines, focus, and team fatigue. Saving Changes...
Community Champion
