Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Do you believe if "Schedule Creep" occurs during the project, it can be controlled or it will cause a permanent deviation from the PM Plan? Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Dec 30, 2015 7:27 AM
Replying to Kiran Kumar
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The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities :). Just to add to what Steven said earlier - the 'If' is a 'When' AND 'HOW'. In the past we had severe issues regarding scope/ schedule creep, where even experienced PM's faced lot of flack for not managing it properly. There is very less that one can do to address the creep, it will happen. and if it happens how can we mitigate is what is required.
From a PMO aspect what we did was a 'Cause and Effect' Analysis on the various projects grouped by size to understand the possible causes of slippages. Once identified most of the issues we were able to address through proper process changes or new processes. For example one of the reason was 'Ambiguous requirements', we set up a Early consulting with the Sponsor and Customer in the early phase (Idea) to identify the and define clearly the requirements which also provided a Rough order of Magnitude of cost for the project
Thanks for your input Kiran - Great approach by your company but as Steven said, not every organization does the same. Saving Changes...
Steven ZacharyDirector| Alberta Health ServicesCalgary, Alberta, Canada
Dec 30, 2015 1:43 PM
Replying to Rami Kaibni
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I agree with this Xavier - What if what occurred was an UNKNOWN-UNKNOWN and it was take into accounts in the Management Reserve. Would you use the MGT Reserve in this case to cover all delays, etc ?
I know I am going to be unpopular with this one but I think the management reserve introduces more problems then it solves....
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1 reply by Rami Kaibni
Dec 30, 2015 1:51 PM
Rami Kaibni
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Not if you use it only when you need to. This should be your last resort when everything else fails.
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Dec 30, 2015 12:41 PM
Replying to Steven Zachary
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HI Rami,
It was 1:00 AM when we started discussing this and I obviously glossed over 50% of the question. When you said 100% recovery I was focused on "recovering the schedule". Obviously there is outputs to that process.
To answer your question, no I am not aware of any way to recover in the cost and schedule categories relevant to what we've been discussing. That said however I have some friends who are masters of the schedule and it wouldn't surprise me if some advanced technique had done this for them in the past.
Thanks a lot for your input Steven - By the way, it was around 4:00 AM my side. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Dec 30, 2015 1:46 PM
Replying to Steven Zachary
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I know I am going to be unpopular with this one but I think the management reserve introduces more problems then it solves....
Not if you use it only when you need to. This should be your last resort when everything else fails. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Depends on capacity. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
I guess it depends on what you call schedule creep. I usually have thresholds on what I measure. Should the actual amount deviate from the budgeted amount by more than the threshold, then I will have to analyze it to see the cause and identify corrective actions.
Within that context, the only schedule creep would be when the deviations are within the threshold amount. Of course, line items could be within the allowed deviations but not its cumulative value. Saving Changes...
Gopal SahaiCorporate Trainer| Self employedNew Delhi, Delhi, India
Off late, I have been handling internal projects mostly. And Scope Creep gets as creepy as it could be. My key stakeholders are functional heads in the organization, who (hope they do not read this, or I hope this do...) have been instrumental in adding to the scope in the name of "dovetailing" and "covering all scenarios".
Experience and common sense says that once scope creep has taken place, it is most advisable to go for a root cause analysis so that it doesn't repeat in the future. Limit the damage. My experience working on internal projects is that you (as PM) do not indulge deep into getting to the root cause and more often than not, are unable to control the scope (and hence schedule, and hence cost) creep.
Ideally, once you have identified the root cause, you would communicate it to the biggest culprit (functional stakeholders, in my case), explaining the damages that occur - and the ultimate impact it would have on them. Theory of Karma, that would work only if the PM uses soft skills as a tool.
With internal projects that I am in, one, you are never able to do the root cause. Two, even if you do, it doesn't really get communicated. Three, even if it does, there are damages to handle because of internal stakeholders.
Coming to the question: "Do you believe if "Schedule Creep" occurs during the project, it can be controlled or it will cause a permanent deviation from the PM Plan?"
In Internal projects, it is really a tough job to be able to control scope creep (and its effects thereafter), causing a permanent deviation from the PM plan. All that can be done is by means of soft skills - interpersonal relationships of a PM. To my mind, that is the only T&T that can be made use of...
... and hence I agree that Schedule / Scope / Cost Creep is only as good (or bad) as the PM.
Raises another question... Is PM 100% responsible for what happens to a project?
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
The proper project management is the sole responsibility of the PM. Scope creep often happens when there are uncontrolled changes that do not go through the proper Change Control Procedure. As long as you control those, you can control scope creep to a certain extent. Saving Changes...
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