This week's lecture slightly touched on scope growth and how it is one thing to watch out for as part of the monitoring and controlling phase. This is usually a very hard thing to monitor in big companies because of how many employees might be involved. For example, at Lockheed Martin, my team of about ten employees usually works on about 2 or 3 different projects at a time. Each project has its own lead That lead might be from another team. The lead might come and ask for additional changes to be made by our team on a special project. This is scope growth but our team might not be free enough to take that growth on. There's no easy of monitoring this in a team working on multiple projects. Is there any efficient way of monitoring and controlling scope growth?
I believe by growth you mean scope creep. Scope creep generally refers to changes or uncontrolled growth in a project's scope. This can involve poor change control, lack of initial identification of tasks in the project, etc. I do not believe that there is any actual way of controlling scope creep as it is bound to happen, especially to large projects. I feel that the best possible way to control this is to simply get in front of it. Determining all required tasks, possible sick/vacation days, and addressing the effects on time of adding features will aide in keeping a project in its proper scope.
I agree with jb678. I feel that it's easier to control creep in some projects rather than others. For example, mirroring a manufacturing facility is easier than building one from scratch. Yet, there are always going to be issues that arise. Having strong plans and documentation to ensure that what needs to get done, and only what needs to get done, happens is the best way to stay in control. No more no less. In your case, your organizational structure may help or hurt. I have no idea what it's like for you. Proper planning should be the best way to counteract creep.
I believe the best way to avoid scope creep is to define a scope and then stick to it. Any deviations should become new changes or projects separate from the one that you are working on. For example, in a project I am working on, a certain product needs to have its shelf life reduced on label. This would be a simple enough change however, after some analysis of the product, it was found that there are already product out there that if the on label shelf life was reduced, would immediately "expire" the product that is out there already. As a team on the project we decided since it was not in the initial scope of the project to continue the shelf life change and have another project be raised to remediate the product supply problem. In this, we stuck to our scope, and avoided having a mammoth problem being added to our relatively simple project.
A useful method of handling scope creep which was mentioned in this week's lecture is to create a Scope Management Plan during the Planning phase of the project. The Scope Management Plan can be part of the DDP and will define the procedure for ensuring that the project's scope stays focused and controlled. Oftentimes what happens throughout the course of a project is that in the process of trying to solve the issue(s) that the project was created to solve, other issues are discovered that should be addressed, which end up falling into the project team's lap and can cause the original project to get sidetracked. It is important therefore to define a solid plan on how to deal with such instances, as you don't want additional tasks interfering in the project's team ability to achieve the original goals of the project. For example, this plan may describe how to allocate resources or personnel to manage new activities added to the scope.
In the lecture this week, Dr. Simon spoke about the scope management plan. This is a good way to attempt to control scope creep by predicting areas where the scope may grow and having preset methods for handling these changes. Unfortunately, scope creep beyond this will be inevitable due to the nature of projects. Having strong interpersonal skills and good leadership is one way to curtail this. If the team can share the load and work together to finish tasks faster then when the scope changes those issues can be dealt with quickly. Strong leadership will be able to spot these issues before they arise and develop methods to solve them. They also can push back against scope creep that is too large, protecting the team from unnecessary work.
An important aspect of any project management team is to properly forecast and project completion of future deliverables. Communication within the team is very vital so as cjm64 mentioned, good leadership is very important so that all members of the team are informed of issues that increase the scope creep. Forecasting and communication can help reduce scope creep because it would help the project management team anticipate issues that arise and if there any setbacks with other projects or things then, it can help managers allocate resources properly so the projects with the highest priority get completed.
This week's lecture slightly touched on scope growth and how it is one thing to watch out for as part of the monitoring and controlling phase. This is usually a very hard thing to monitor in big companies because of how many employees might be involved. For example, at Lockheed Martin, my team of about ten employees usually works on about 2 or 3 different projects at a time. Each project has its own lead That lead might be from another team. The lead might come and ask for additional changes to be made by our team on a special project. This is scope growth but our team might not be free enough to take that growth on. There's no easy of monitoring this in a team working on multiple projects. Is there any efficient way of monitoring and controlling scope growth?
Scope growth/creep happens all the time in industry. It's happened many times to me where I was working on a project and someone on another team heard I was updating a specific product or making some sort of change and they asked if I could also make an additional change "since I was updating those parts anyway". The same goes for suppliers or surgeons that you work with - if they know you are updating something and they happen to want to update that same part, they'll inevitably ask you to implement their requested change, even if it has nothing to do with the project you are supposed to be working on. The important thing is to understand how much additional work you'll be signing yourself up for. If the ask from the other person/team is minor and easy to implement, and it won't affect your timeline at all, then it probably makes sense to include that change for the good of the business. However, if including that change means that you'll need to extend your timeline by months, add additional resources to your project team, need additional financial support to complete the project, etc. then you need to hold your ground and tell them you can't help them and they'll need to submit a separate request to implement that change. However, sometimes that happens and management will tell you to implement the change anyway, at which point you'll need to make it clear that this is a huge scope growth and make it known that your initial project plan is no longer valid.
Given the high likelihood of there being scope growth/creep during a project, I believe that adaptability is important. The project team should be prepared for scope creep and adaptable in the case where changes or additions have to be made. I agree with JordanKayal in that sometimes one has to say "no" when the scope creep is too large and the initial project plan gets out of sight, but one should plan for the scope creeps that aren't too excessive or maybe the additional requests can be negotiated with so that the scope doesn't change too much. By providing an adequate time cushion and completing tasks before the deadlines, the team can better account for the scope creeps. I think scope creep is best dealt with by being aware that it is almost inevitable, having extra time in case of scope creeps, and finding a middle ground with the requests when the scope creep becomes too large. Lastly, frequent team meetings to address the monitoring and controlling of scope creeps is always important.
@ajm73 I definitely agree with you that the project team should just focus on the initial project at hand. Unfortunately, that is hard to do, especially for projects that are driven by the customer. I work in a 3rd party contract manufacturer; a current project that is near completion just got "derailed" by the customer. While in validation, the customer's forecast for sales was changed, and they decided that we should add new SKUs to the equipment we were building. This caused the project to extend another 6 months.
While it would have been nice for use to say, "we are so close to wrapping up this project, let us finish this one, and start another project for the new SKUs", we are unable to because the customer ultimately drives. Since the project got extended another 6 months, odds are that in 5 months, another change will pop up!
@ajm73 I definitely agree with you that the project team should just focus on the initial project at hand. Unfortunately, that is hard to do, especially for projects that are driven by the customer. I work in a 3rd party contract manufacturer; a current project that is near completion just got "derailed" by the customer. While in validation, the customer's forecast for sales was changed, and they decided that we should add new SKUs to the equipment we were building. This caused the project to extend another 6 months.
While it would have been nice for use to say, "we are so close to wrapping up this project, let us finish this one, and start another project for the new SKUs", we are unable to because the customer ultimately drives. Since the project got extended another 6 months, odds are that in 5 months, another change will pop up!
I agree with both @ka234 and @ajm73 opinions. Working on a project that needs a long period of time can be compromised by a series of events. Especially those projects that are based on consumers' needs. For intense, In the midst of a clinical study that my team was working on, a pandemic took place and my entire team was relocated to work on a whole different project because the consumers are in need of a vaccine to end this pandemic. Monitoring the project throughout the timeline is essential to keep the project running on a track. That being said it doesn't mean that circumstances won't affect the growth of your project.
first of all I would like give some examples of reasons why scope creep happens. One problem that would cause scope creep, is not having a clear scope known by all different groups that are involved in the project (Teams, Stackholders..etc). In this case, as others have Mentioned having good communication can overcome this, let the teams clearly understand the scope and the Vision that was set for this project. Another thing, is not involving Stockholders from the beginning, where you could have the changes done in early part of the project when change is easier to happen than when the project is almost done. Having good project management skills, scope creep will not make a big issue.
I have seen the problem with scope growth in my limited experience working at Johnson & Johnson. While at Ethicon, some individuals on my team get pulled from their normal day-to-day tasks to take on other assignments that other project managers or leads ask them to do. Like @jordankayal mentioned, this makes sense if it helps improve the workflow of the company, but all too often the limited amount of resources in a team gets stretched thin due to the overabundance of others asking for them to work on their projects. Once it comes to this point where the timeline for tasks gets delayed because of scope growth, a serious discussion needs to be had on appointing more resources or minimizing the number of tasks that the team members can take on.
