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Project management is the planning, organizing and managing the effort to accomplish a successful project.

Scope Creep and its Impact on project Delivery

Scope Creep and its Impact on project Delivery

 

Project Management and Project Delivery seemingly harmless words; but can run businesses to the ground when gone wrong. It is not as simple as moving from one point to the other or setting a goal and distributing the activities among a set of people and arriving at it happily.

If you are one of those Project Managers who thinks things are this simple – you are lucky! Projects are complex endeavors with 100s of moving parts. Pick any project from your experiences so far and analyze. You will find elements like resources, time, budget, milestones, defined deliverables, company direction, change of stakeholders, change of stakeholder requirements, market conditions, competition, acts of nature etc. that need to be assessed and planned for.

You miss to account for one of them & if it skews in an unwanted direction your entire project runs the risk of crumbling like a house of cards. Agreed that we cannot humanely control all of these elements but definitely a few of them and mainly the critical ones – Scope, Timelines & Budget!

And the most interesting thing about these 3 elements lies in the fact that they are controlled, changed and tossed around by the same set of people – most of the times.

  • Existing or New Stakeholders
  • Change in stakeholder requirements
  • Business demands
  • Company direction etc.

Let us see how any unplanned changes to these elements impact our deliverables and their quality. The root of all troubles for any project lies in Scope changes or Scope Creep as commonly referred in a purely project management terminology.

Understanding Scope and Scope Creep

 

Defining and understanding Scope of a project is the most important activity in the project management life cycle. Simply, because Scope or the statement of work [SOW] is the very basis and the bible that guides your project from start to finish The “single source of truth” that pervades and resolves all conflicts! At the onset of a project, being a Project Manager you must spend a fair amount of time to understand:

  • The requirements
  • Ask more and more questions till you are sure you understand your client and stakeholders expectations.
  • What are the business drivers of the project
  • What is the fundamental need of the project
  • Why the project is being funded and prioritized as it is

Once you have all the above answers, you must proceed with documenting them, circulating them among the stakeholders, decision makers to ensure they understand, agree and sign-off.

A point worth noting here is the documentation is to ensure everyone involved with the project knows very clearly as

  • What WILL be delivered
  • What WILL NOT be delivered

In addition, to this allow for a few days for your clients and executives to review and request any modifications. But at the same time do assign an “offer expires by date” to add the much needed attention & focus to this binding document.

The expiry date triggers a very helpful chain reaction where all stakeholders become keen to ensure ‘their objectives’ are part of the project scope. Thereby, there is increased participation, debate and Q&A to further refine the end objective and project goals.

 

Do note that the increased participation also means greater stakeholder alignment which is one of the critical success factors for successful project delivery.

Having performed the above due-diligence, ensures that everyone understands the deliverables, the time, efforts and cost required to meet the overarching project goal. So far so good! You have done everything a good project manager MUST do. Now, let’s get to the devil that lies in actual practice and implementation – say hello to Scope Creep!

Scope Creep, simply put is adding new features, altering existing requirements or changing the pre-agreed project goals. They can come in at any time and disrupt your entire project strategy because they require additional resource, time and cost which were not accounted for at the beginning.

Typical scope creep comes in as minor requests or major overhaul due to a change of business strategy, market demands etc.

It is often noted that a seemingly harmless tweak is requested and this one tweak leads to another and another and before we realize we have already shifted away from what was originally intended! And suddenly, there are delays, milestones are being missed, planned costs rise, quality is impacted and customer dissatisfaction starts pouring in.

Hence, it is important to understand that no project is free of Scope Creep! They are bound to find their way in to your project. But it is also important to understand WHY?

Why do I have Scope Creep?

 

As stated earlier, if enough effort and focus is not devoted to base lining your scope, you have setup yourself for a definitive failure. However despite of the due diligence there are other factors that contribute to a lack of proper Scope e.g.

  • Lack of enough clarity or information on requirements
  • Unavailability of the right stakeholders
  • Conflicting ideas and opinions
  • Lack of proper and time bound feedback mechanism
  • Promising the moon
  • Bid to outdo the competition
  • PM with poor leadership

Understanding the impact of Scope Creep on Time and Budget

We now have a fair understanding of what is scope creep & what contributes to it. So let us rightly move to explore its impact on our project, project team and reputation of our organization.

Consider a very relevant yet hypothetical example of a new iPhone to be launched. At the onset of the year it is decided that the next iPhone would pose a larger screen with a new exterior look. We all know it’s the WWDC in September each year without fail where the products are launched.

Hence all project execution and planning is done with that date in mind. Now the project kicks-off everything goes fine and suddenly there is a buzz around removing the standard headphone jack or adding a dual sim slot!

What do you think is the impact of these 2 feature changes?

These “features” as we refer to bring with them a whole range of research, additional planning and overhauls the execution. Almost everything stops until the exterior frame is finalized.

Do not forget the manufacturer involved in making these phones. So the new plan goes like this – research and builds ability for the iPhone to host and run the 2nd sim, remove the headphone jack and replace – replace with what???

You get the drill! Think of this – the WWDC CANNOT be shifted; what all is at stake – Money, lots of it! Reputation – one that is hard to earn so easily and must be protected at all costs. So again – Money! Bound to meet the WWDC deadline so add resources, more and more resources.

Now, do note that we all are not Apple Inc. and consider what havoc a Scope Creep can cause to our bottom-line, company’s reputation and most importantly the confidence and moral of the project team. Demotivated soldiers have never won a war!

This is as seen on the surface. Just drill down a bit and imagine how a real workplace with such an activity in progress would look!

  • Continuous fire fighting
  • Conflicting interests & priorities
  • Overloaded and overworked resources
  • Rising expenses & investments
  • Dissatisfied Stakeholders
  • Demotivated & battered employees

 

How to protect your project from Scope Creep

With the insights shared so far it is pretty evident of what must be done to ‘prevent’ scope creep. But what about when you are already into it ?

Let us take a quick look at some best practices or guidelines followed by project teams across the globe to contain scope creeps and yet maintain a high client satisfaction and project success rate.

Invoke the Scope Baseline or SOW

The project Scope is a Project Manager’s best friend! The most diligent of PMs live by their Scope Baseline and refer to it for the slightest of activities that may indicate a deviation from what was agreed.

The healthy practice of consulting the baseline proves an effective strategy in holding off pushy clients. In other words, it also reminds them of what they signed up for and puts the extra onus on them to be judicious with their requests

Communication and Feedback

Too much communication has never proved harmful! Make sure your clients, decision makers and each individual who has a significant stake in the project and can alter its course are fed a steady stream of progress information.

Define a clear communication criteria in terms of frequency of updates, means of updates (reports, meetings) and timing of these updates.

This keeps your clients updated with actual status and helps ease any anxiety plus helps build their confidence and trust. Also, when they know they have the right platform & tools to voice their feedback or concerns they would be more vocal and mindful of the timing too to not derail steady progress.

Thus any conflicting or contentious issues can be proactively identified and addressed to prevent Scope Creep.

We all know an outright rejection or denial of a client’s request isn’t advisable. And most of the times you may not be even aware of what does a scope change request entails.

It might be a fairly simple ask and not impact the scope. The best thing to do upon receiving an unexpected request is to respond with – “Let me assess and estimate the time and cost implications of the requested change”.

You will easily ward off any client personnel who is neither serious nor committed to the project with these words – assess and estimate! On the other hand if they are serious, they would definitely like to take a look at your assessment and make an informed decision. And if they decide to move forward, you have an opportunity to generate additional revenue and invoke your change management process. Thus, we all are happy!

Built a Strong Change Control Culture

The significance of a robust Change Control process cannot be emphasized enough. You should NEVER have a contract without a Change Process clause! When the change is requested, there is a series of approvals that are triggered.

This leads to enhanced attention on the requested changes and the required focus to decide if it is needed at all. Well, it will curb scope creep is one aspect but the important thing is it leads to a good review of the original plan and assessment of

  • What will the impact
  • Are we ready to accept the impact – delays, costs etc.
  • Is there enough cost and time bandwidth
  • Lastly will it enhance or significantly support the fundamental goal of the project

 

Change Control culture allows you to maintain the required transparency & puts you in control!

Additionally it demonstrates your forward thinking and professionalism thereby a positive impact on your company’s reputation. Win-Win! Isn’t it?

Penalties – The Silver Bullet

Penalties are an aggressive approach deployed by the client and service providers alike to ensure both hold their end of the bargain.

With penalties baked into a contract ensures both parties are always diligent and never lose sight of the goal. Penalties trigger a competition, fierce at times where both strive to achieve the same goal.

And it goes without saying, all unwanted and impulsive requests are out of the door right away.

Why so? Because the primary reason for undertaking a project is to make money not lose it! Having said that, Penalties are a bitter pill best not enforced upon because they indicate lack of trust, obstruct innovation, impact the team’s morale & rather sets us up for unwanted conflicts And hence, they are not considered to be professional in nature.

To that effect, let us deploy the right tools as illustrated above and at our disposal to ensure that things never come this far in our projects!

 

How Agile Project Management Prevents Resource Conflicts

How Agile Project Management Prevents Resource Conflicts

 

Introduction

Agile Project Management helps when your team has got evolving needs and wants to rapidly deliver the project.
The traditional way, mostly known as the Waterfall methodology fails to keep up with the requirements change.
On one hand, Agile Methodology is about iterative planning whereas on the other hand Waterfall is about sequential planning.

In software development companies there are constant requirements changes. So a method that is based on continuous planning and feedback through the process will deliver the business value right from the start.

Agile Project Management benefits:

 

  • Regular Testing produces high-quality products
    The testing’s integrated through the production cycle. Regular testing makes sure whether the product is working through the development, and helps resolve issues if any.
  • Meeting Customer’s needs
    User interaction is encouraged. The product owner is present every step of the way of progress of development. And his feedback and involvement is essential to deliver the right product.
  •  Chances of risks are reduced
    From the beginning of the project, in the very first sprint, you have a working product. It completely eliminates the chances of complete project failure.
  •  Seamless collaboration
    Everyone is on the same page regarding the project, the scrum master, the product owner, and the development team. Daily scrum meetings identify the work done, the work to be done and the issues.
  • Prevents resource conflicts
    With ever-changing goals, your team can miss deadlines, and it could lead to project failure. But agile project management can prevent chaos in your workflow process and remove the resource conflict.
    When a project manager needs a scarce resource, and there is insufficient capacity to allow all demands on that resource to be met it is called a resource conflict.
    When it happens, you ought to ask yourself a few questions to gain much-needed clarity about the problem.
  •  Is the resource spread out too thin?
  •  Or is he having trouble prioritizing projects?
  •  Do other resources have his skill??
  •  Are they available?
  •  Can you distribute the tasks?
  •  If you can’t solve it, can a higher level of project manager do it?
  •  What is the time you need to solve the conflict?

17% of the projects fail due to poor resource management according to PMI

A proper resource planning can be done with the help of robust project management software.
It helps with planning, analysis, and forecast. And it can also increase your project success rate exponentially.
“Even though only 22% of the organizations use PM software, 77% of high-performing projects use project management software.- Wellington’s survey”
If you want success, you need to use agile project management to prevent resource conflict.


Here Agile Project Management solves the conflicts

 

Optimal use of resources


Efficient resource management involves planning, allocation, and efficient resource utilization.
It makes sure you are making proper use of resources available to you. It also guarantees that your team is not underperforming or your staff isn’t overburdened.
Happy resources perform to their fullest.

Resource utilization can be effective only when resource allocation is on point.
A project manager picks the resource for a particular task based on his skills and availability.
He checks whether the resource is free enough to take on the task.
Project management software provides you with features like – Resource Availability and Resource Utilization to ease your resource management process.
It helps you analyze whether your resources are over-utilized or under-utilized.
You can check the productivity of a resource by comparing his estimated hours with actual
hours spent.
And you can also check whether a resource is available for a particular task with the
resource availability feature. A resource availability chart maps out the time a resource can
invest.
It shows you whether he is available for the task, overloaded or on leave. If a resource is
booked for 8 hours of tasks for that day, then when you assign a task he is on task overload.

If a resource is spread out too thin, you can assign tasks to someone else or you can
distribute the task among team members.
This way you can complete the task on time, without overtaxing the resources. The benefits
don’t end here.

 

Here are more advantages of using resource availability.
Heightened collaboration and team understanding.
Awareness of task dependencies
Enhanced clarity on project progress
Team members are on top of their schedule
Easy and timely delivery of projects

 

Transparent Communication


Project management becomes a piece of cake when all the information and all the team
members are on a single platform.
A common chart listing the availability of all team members gives everyone clarity for future
project progress.

It prevents resource conflicts because resource allocation becomes easy.
The PM needs to choose a specific member for a task with relevant skill, who is available in
the said time.
When all these lengthy processes become automated through software, this saves a lot of
time and there is a better alignment on business objectives.

Conflicts prevention saves time

Team and time are the two critical resources. You do not want to waste any.
Agile project management can solve resource conflicts and save time.
The daily catch-up ritual is something to be followed ardently by the team.
You know where your project stands, where it has to go, and you decide which route to take
to reach their fastest.
Here is a simple example describing how agile project management prevents resource conflicts.
Our team had to publish five milestone content within a week. But we are a team of 3, Rachel was booked for the week, and so was Tina. It was only Rory who was available for the task.
But our content head knew that 5 for 1 is an unbalanced ratio. The unavailability of other team members took a toll on productivity.
So he took the matter in his hands and tried solving the resource conflict. He reallocated the tasks to Tina and Rachel. Tina had 1 milestone content, Rachel had 2 milestone content and Rory had 3 milestone content to deal with.
He reassigned the task priorities and saved the pending tasks for next week.
Even though the resources weren’t completely available, he knew how to re-prioritize and deliver the immediate results important for the project.

Agile project management gives you increased control over the project and helps you to adapt according to the change.

  • What a Project manager learns from it?
  • You learn how to be more accommodating
  • You become adaptable
  • Become a master at re-prioritizing
  • How to hit relevant and immediate goals
  • How to manage resources
  • Prevent project delays


Resource conflicts can be prevented by resource management components like availability and allocation. And agile project management is all about continuous planning and adapting. It is flexible enough to handle the conflicts, and not fall back on the progress.

What is agile project management?

What is agile project management?

 

Agile project management is an incremental and iterative approach to delivering requirements throughout the project life cycle. At the core, agile projects should exhibit central values and behaviors of trust, flexibility, empowerment, and collaboration.

Agile project management principles There are several methodologies that can be used to manage an agile project; two of the best known to be Lean and Scrum. An agile project’s defining characteristic is that it produces and delivers work in short bursts (or sprints) of anything up to a few weeks.

These are repeated to refine the working deliverable until it meets the owner’s requirements. Where the known project management will establish requirements in detail and detailed plan at the start then attempt to follow the plan, agile starts work with a rough idea of what is required and by delivering something in a short period of time, clarifies the requirements as the project progresses.

These frequent iterative procedures are a key feature of an agile project and cooperative relationships are developed between stakeholders and the team members that deliver the job because of this manner of working. The scope has to be adaptable where no detailed requirements exist initially, but agile still have processes to ensure that, at each stage, the work to be done is defined and in-line with client needs.

 

The project manager’s role is different on agile construction projects (and is often known as the Scrum Master or Project Facilitator); it is the team member who deals with problems and handles interruptions to allow the other team members to concentrate on producing the work.

Agile projects need reviews, processes and documentation just as traditional projects do to meet requirements, manage schedules and costs and, deliver benefits and avoid scope creep; agile simply does not place as much emphasis on very detailed documentation and does not expect to fully understand the requirements before work can begin. Instead, it emphasizes the importance of delivering a working product as something tangible for the client that can then be refined until it fulfills the owner’s needs. The key measure of progress of the project is this series of working deliverables.

 

Why is agile project management is important?

 

Agile project management has its disadvantages such as less easy identification of project risks and poor management of resources, and many project teams don’t understand how to use agile project management effectively. However, with the fast pace of business change in the 21st century, many projects need to be sure they will deliver something that meets client needs at the end of the project and not expends wasted effort refining requirements that will be out of date by the time the end-product is delivered.

Agile project management has its disadvantages such as less easy identification of project risks and poor management of resources, and many project teams don’t understand how to use agile project management effectively. However, with the fast pace of business change in the 21st century, many projects need to be sure they will deliver something that meets client needs at the end of the project and not expends wasted effort refining requirements that will be out of date by the time the end-product is delivered.

 

Even in business environments that don’t change rapidly, it can be difficult to fully articulate requirements without seeing a tangible product first so there is still the risk of delivering something that does not quite meet the owner’s needs. That is why agile is becoming increasingly necessary for many different projects’ types.

 

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