Analyzing Scope Creep: A professional personal experience

A professional project that I played a role in and that experienced issues related to scope creep occurred last year. I was contracted to deliver a Self-Evaluation-Report (SER) for a private post-secondary school experiencing difficulty with meeting a scheduled deadline established by a national school accreditor. The accreditor granted a 6-month extension for submitting the SER.

I was hired on to help with the SER 3 months before the final deadline. The project team consisted of four individuals including myself as the project manager. One team member was assigned administrative tasks such as gathering data, maintaining files and preparing reports. A second team member was to screen written narratives and edit as necessary for grammar, punctuation, and text presentation. The third member of the team was an experienced accreditation evaluator who advised the team on SER content and format. All team members had full-time jobs with different employers.

I was the only one working on this project full-time.
The school provided the project team access to facilities and computer equipment including printers, internet, telephones, desks, and office space. My point of contact was the school Director who was under pressure from the corporate CEO to get the SER delivered on time. The corporate CEO, who was 1200 miles away, was updated every Friday of the week via email, telephone, and copies of SER sections completed as per schedule. Two weeks into the project the team started experiencing scope creep.

One major finding addressed during the SER was a programmatic standard that calls for a formal program effectiveness plan. The school had no such plan in place and risked losing its accreditation. This meant that Title IV funding could be cancelled depriving the school of its main source of income, Pell Grants. This resulted in the client requesting that I provide guidance with implementing a formal program effectiveness plan in less than three weeks in addition to the services originally agreed upon.

Looking back at this experience, I can now see certain problem indicators that I chose to ignore at the time. The school had not been able to meet the initial deadline set by the accreditors and had therefore requested a 6-month extension. Three months into its extended timeline, the school had made no significant progress in completed the SER and had therefore hired an outside source (yours truly) for this purpose. I have since learned that school employees were not willing to work on the SER because it was something unfamiliar to them. All school employees familiar with its accreditation process had moved on, leaving inexperienced administrators and staff in charge. The findings resulting from the SER became a source of concern and near panic among the school administrators who looked to me for answers.

Moving forward with another project will require considerations for reducing the negative impact from unexpected scope creep possibilities. Project management principles and techniques will be the normal protocols from now on. Binding agreements in the form of written documentation outlining the purpose, objectives, constraints, and assumptions for each project will be agreed upon by all stakeholders (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, 2008, Page 43). In addition to a written Statement of Work, an agreed upon project scope statement, project strategy that includes a list of described deliverables, work to be performed, project team assignments, lines of communication, structured organizational hierarchies, budgetary allocations, schedules/timelines, and scope change protocols will be provided in writing to help this aspiring PM guide, direct and control my next project (Portny et al, 2008).

Greer writes that scope changes “can be beneficial when they allow the project team to respond sensibly to changing conditions that exist outside the project”. He explains that “Change of scope is normal-it’s not necessarily a problem” (Greer, M., 2010). From my perspective, I can't help but think how fortunate I was to have been the only accreditation SME in a building full of professional administrators and gauged the potential career opportunities being presented. This perspective allowed me to think outside the box with a calm and resolute clarity of thought that helped me to remain focused on the original deliverables. The project team met the original deadline for submitting a quality SER and went on to develop the client’s first program effectiveness plan. However, I had to work overtime without pay for several days to get it done. Today I enjoy a rewarding and fulfilling instructorship with this same school.

Ref:

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.