One of my favorite shows to watch is Man vs. Food on the
Travel Channel. This show follows Adam
Richman in his pursuit to find the biggest and best foods the U.S of A offers. At the end of every episode, Adam takes on
the local food challenge. This ranges
from eating a 4.5 pound steak with sides in 60 minutes to four pounds of
pancakes with one pound of toppings in 90 minutes. What does this have to do with project
management you ask? This has to do with
scope creep. Scope creep refers to
uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in the scope of a project. Remember scope is the work that needs to be
accomplished to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified
features and functions. Like Adam,
victims of scope creep may soon find the juicy, succulent steak has suddenly
morphed into a monstrous 4.5 pound steak that needs to be finished in less than
an hour. Something fairly pleasant morphed
into a struggle that leaves many people giving up before they have
finished.
So what causes scope creep?
Scope creep can be caused by a disingenuous customer, poor change
control, lack of proper scope definition, a weak project manager or executive
sponsor, and poor communication. Scope
creep to sum it up is change. Any
change can bring more or less cost, time or labor to a project. Change control management is vital to scope
creep. Change control is a formal
process used to ensure that changes to a product or system are introduced in a
controlled and coordinated manner. This
occurs at every level. The project
manager must decide whether a change is necessary, whether it is within their
authority to make the change, and what impact the change will have on the
overall project. Without a formal means
for change control, many unnecessary changes will occur, because they are
outside of the authority of the project manager. Thus, a Change Control Board (CCB) is necessary
to ensure that conflicts the project manager can not solve can be arbitrated by
a sponsor with sufficient authority.
Thus, through proper change control a project manager can limit change,
and thus limit scope.
One last thing about scope creep, a project manager may not
be able to influence all external changes, but they should be able to influence
most internal changes. This is where the
management part comes into play. A
manager makes decisions. Thus, a
project manager needs to decide what to do with changes. Not all changes need to go to upper
management, nor do they need customer approval.
You may ask which ones are which?
This is why you are being paid, to make a decision. You could send every change to the customer
and sponsor, but you would quickly find that your project is being slowed down
as your team awaits decisions. The
customer and sponsor would get annoyed at you for bringing everything to their
attention and wonder what your role really is.
So make a decision. Will you be
wrong sometimes, yes. That’s just the
way things are, but if the project manager is blamed when things go wrong
wouldn’t you rather have it have been because you made the wrong call, than
someone else made the wrong call for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment