david wolfpaw

digital citizen

Project Scope Creep

Something that I’ve had to deal with on multiple occasions, and see happen often at work, is “Scope Creep”. My definition of this is a project that, due to excitement on behalf of the client or designer, or not fully formed to start with, begins adding features willy nilly. You start with a website to display cooking products, and end up with a monstrosity that allows users to see pictures of every item in your inventory from ten angles, customize and place orders for spatulas from their cellphones, and read the daily musings of your great aunt who had a recipe in a community cookbook several decades ago. What started as a straightforward problem with a clear solution became a tangle of new problems with no answers.
This is a big issue when it comes to projects with a set budget, both monetary and time-wise. It’s important to keep scope creep from happening, and I’ve found that a few guidelines can help.

1. Have a clearly defined scope to the project in a written contract. Some customers will use poorly worded contracts to argue that the 30 page addition to their site should not only cost nothing extra, but also keep the g0-live schedule in place.

2. If additions are needed, have a plan for that as well. Any additions beyond the original need to have a clearly defined cost and time addition to them.

3. Learn to say no. It’s easy to bend to client pressure, especially when you are not in a position to turn away customers. Be helpful to them, but remember that your time is your money, and extra time spent on one client is time that is taken away from another, or from following new leads.

It’s not always bad to make changes midstream. Sometimes change is what’s needed, and a project will be better for it, and possibly even run quicker and more organized. Being able to recognize when the changes are becoming superfluous, and how to control those situations, will greatly reduce your workload and stress levels. I personally no longer take on a project that does not interest me, and if I need to learn to do something new, it’s on my time, and for my own benefit. In the end, I work more diligently on those that I personally care about, and have new tools in my repertoire for the future.

Posted

12 January 2011

in

david wolfpaw

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Project Scope Creep

Something that I've had to deal with on multiple occasions, and see happen often at work, is "Scope Creep".  My definition of this is a project that, due to excitement on behalf of the client or designer, or not fully formed to start with, begins adding features willy nilly.  You start with a website to display cooking products, and end up with a monstrosity that allows users to see pictures of every item in your inventory from ten angles, customize and place orders for spatulas from their cellphones, and read the daily musings of your great aunt who had a recipe in a community cookbook several decades ago.  What started as a straightforward problem with a clear solution became a tangle of new problems with no answers.
This is a big issue when it comes to projects with a set budget, both monetary and time-wise. It's important to keep scope creep from happening, and I've found that a few guidelines can help.

1. <strong>Have a clearly defined scope to the project in a written contract.</strong> Some customers will use poorly worded contracts to argue that the 30 page addition to their site should not only cost nothing extra, but also keep the g0-live schedule in place.

2. <strong>If additions are needed, have a plan for that as well.</strong> Any additions beyond the original need to have a clearly defined cost and time addition to them.

3. <strong>Learn to say no.</strong> It's easy to bend to client pressure, especially when you are not in a position to turn away customers.  Be helpful to them, but remember that your time is your money, and extra time spent on one client is time that is taken away from another, or from following new leads.

It's not always bad to make changes midstream.  Sometimes change is what's needed, and a project will be better for it, and possibly even run quicker and more organized.  Being able to recognize when the changes are becoming superfluous, and how to control those situations, will greatly reduce your workload and stress levels.  I personally no longer take on a project that does not interest me, and if I need to learn to do something new, it's on my time, and for my own benefit.  In the end, I work more diligently on those that I personally care about, and have new tools in my repertoire for the future.