Miscommunication, mutual frustrations, under-deliverability.

Those who have ever worked on the front lines of or coordinated a project have most likely experienced scope creep. While you might be unfamiliar with this particular project management term, you would be hard-pressed to find a project that didn’t significantly derail at one point or another. 

For projects that span over longer lifecycles, scope creep is a common phenomenon for businesses. It is crucial to define your project goals, budget, resources, and requirements beforehand with project management software can eliminate future instances of scope creep and ensure that everything stays on track.

Usually, however, scope creep is a dreaded, wasteful element of any project.

But let’s back up here a bit.

What exactly is scope creep, and why is it inevitable? How can project managers combat it and reduce if not completely prevent, it from becoming an overwhelming blocker?

Scope creep occurs when the project scope is undefined or ill-defined at the outset of a project start and the plan is not properly drawn out for internal and external stakeholders. The cursory nature of project supervisors lead to clients seeking more changes and adding to their requirements at the later stages, which makes the project members suffer.

Why does scope creep occur?

Scope creep occurs when new goals and parameters are defined at a later stage of the project, which adds more work to the team. It adds more deliverables to project stakeholders because of some urgent pivot to a new goal or inability to afford new project resources. External and internal stakeholders have an equal role in extending scope creep by redefining action items and adding new milestones at later stages of the project cycle. 

The term “scope creep” describes a project that has started to extend, or creep, beyond its initially agreed-upon parameters. It is the act of adding deliverables and requests to a project. A project team member may acquiesce to an offhand request, not realizing the manpower or extra steps it actually requires.

A stakeholder may prioritize client satisfaction without considering bandwidth and realistic end results. A team lead may have misunderstood the project’s schedule or cost. Team members may want to go above and beyond expectations.

Regardless of intention, scope creep directly impacts productivity, project profitability, and effectiveness.

Scope creep is not 100 percent bad — after all, it is a byproduct of failing fast, pivoting quickly, and reacting to feedback. However, poorly managed scope creep may damage client and team member relationships, harm team morale, or plummet a project into a painful loss.

Effective management of scope creep requires project managers to perform an effortless juggling act.

Negative consequences of a scope creep 

Even though scope creep might not be entirely destructive, it has some sure-shot negative consequences that can impede team motivation and productivity in the long run. 

• Project delays: Approving new requirements and tasks for a project team can halt or delay other important projects. Teammates might be eager to shoulder new responsibilities and follow the command of project stakeholders while leaving their current set of tasks incomplete. This can cause an imbalance between different projects and lead to scope creep.
• Budget overruns: Due to the addition of more goals, teams require their employees to work overtime and late shifts, which can aid in employee resignations. This would lead to a series of compensatory changes and increments for team members so that they can be retained in the team. Additional costs like these can cause massive budget overshoots.  
• Reduced quality: Receiving new requests and modifications later can cause confusion, lack of productivity, and frustration among project members. The members might start rushing through the goals to prevent scope creep. Not paying attention to sub-tasks and individual key performance indicators (KPIs) can reduce the quality of work and end the project substandardly. 
• Timeline extensions: When a project defers from its original route, employees need time to address the new requirements and fulfill the ask. They might require more timeline extensions that would expand the normal turnaround and slow down the speed of project progress. 
• Resource strain: With new stakeholder demands, members may need more deliverables, assets, and resources to complete their assigned tasks. This would exhaust your current stock of resources and result in more upfront project investment. The resources are critical to the project's success but can limit your ability to stay within the project budget. 
• Quality compromise: When multiple teams digress from their original goal and make external requests a priority, there is a considerable drop in the quality and accuracy of the project.

Common Causes of Scope Creep

Scope creep can take birth due to many causes. It is a common phenomenon that occurs when a business is experimenting with new project pilots and are unsure of the exact trackable outcomes of a project. The phenomenon is common for early adopters who have to deal with regressive clientele that pushes their boundaries by asking for more services with less budget. 

The common causes of scope creep include the following:

• Vaguely defined project charter:  The project charter clearly outlines all goals and commitments of a particular project. If the project charter does not outline resource allocation, bandwidth, project outcomes, and project budget clearly, this can eat into the main project process at a later stage and can cause a strain on project health and, ultimately, scope creep.
• Lack of clarity regarding initial scope/project objectives: A dearth of project induction and project seminars in the beginning can lead to immaculate confusion and interjection of tasks and asset consumption later. This can prevent teams from focusing on their work and divert all their attention to the new interferences and tasks that pop up during the project cycle. 
• Poor or insufficient communication: The inability to keep your team members on the same page and educate them regarding the significance of new projects can hinder their productivity and make them procrastinate. It can also cause conflict between project members who compete with each other to see who becomes the key contributor to a project. 
• Clients or customers who try to take advantage: Strict and blunt clients who appoint a business for a particular service can put more pressure on project teams to submit the deliverables way before time. This can create an atmosphere of chaos and fiasco within an organization and make them work late hours to submit a proposal for clients. While the work gets done, many aspects or guidelines will be avoided. This results in a mediocre deliverable because of scope creep. 
• Inflexible change control process: A lack of approval workflow can further aggravate scope creep. Not implementing change control and not having any approval committee to review, regroup, rework, and approve the changes made because of scope creep can further extend the work and put the project on a halt. 
• Weak leadership: If the senior leadership teams (SLTs) do not have any experience encountering project-based challenges, scope creep can occur repeatedly. Failing to establish clear goals and objectives for project members and allowing them to work for uncountable stakeholders can reduce employee productivity. They might ask for extensions and underuse the resources, which leads to scope creep. 
• Lack of support from the project sponsor: Without strong support from the project lead or project sponsor, the project teams would be unsure of the right path to project success. This ambiguity can lead to frequent changes and undone duties that would cause a major roadblock in overall business goals. 
• Last-minute, irrelevant feedback: Incompetent project reviewers can mark the project document incorrectly, which makes the project even more inflexible. It forces the supervisors to monitor all the minute details again and again. This delay and persistent monitoring can cause scope creep and affect the serviceability of the project. 

Scope creep mitigation with G2 project leads

Our G2 team members have shared their thoughts on the unflinching yet inevitable occurrence of scope creep and ways in which it can be reduced or toned down so that it doesn't negatively impact team efforts and hard work.

“Scope creep has been an issue on a number of projects I've coordinated," Turenne says. "In same cases it comes from miscommunication about the definition of "done", but other times it comes from changes internally or from management. Both instances are incredibly frustrationg, but it is an inevitable part of project coordination, so I have a few techniques to combat it.”

Stacy Turenne
Manager, Research Operations, G2

For internal scope creep, Turenne recommends holding face-to-face conversations with everyone involved.

“It's important to differentiate between must-have and nice-to-have deliverables or changing deliverables that will impact timeline, budget or other projects," she says. "If the new deliverable is a must have that's more important than the existing timeline or budget, it's worked in. If not, it can be spun off into a new projects or parked for later consideration." 

Stacy Turenne
Manager, Research Operations, G2

Kevin Long, senior manager of research operations at G2 Crowd, echoes Turenne’s point about eliminating the game of telephone.

“Collaboration is key to the success of any project or initiative," Long says. "As more collaborators are brought into the fold, it's key to communicate the original driver and requirements early and often to ensure you keep the team focused and prevent any nice-to-have or unnecessary requirements from derailing the intended impact."

Kevin Long
Senior Director, Product R&D Ops, G2

How to prevent scope creep

Even though there is not a 100% guarantee that a project path will be free of scope creep, some remedial measures can lessen the destructive edge of scope creep and create a risk management plan to ensure project success. 

Some of the methods include:

• A good change control process with change request documentation, including cause and scope
• The project outcomes and goals should be clearly defined at the outset of a project cycle, and teams should be empowered to work strictly according to the plan.
• Project management software that facilitates the creation of schedules and closely monitors project progress
• Regular updates to the scope statement upon approval of change requests so that all relevant parties (including stakeholders) are in the know
• Proper processing, documentation, and communication of all changes to the scope and timelines
• Consistent scrums and standups to log updates from project executives and have a clear idea of project progress and project timelines. 
• Collaboration with clients, sponsors, and end users, in addition to all relevant team members and stakeholders

Don't be a "project creep"

Staying aware of company-wide goals and establishing clear team practices can define your project path from start to end and keep you away from scope creep. Being clear on your project alignment and resources with project members can increase motivation, effectiveness and productivity, which would reduce chances of failure. 

Learn more about efficient project management methodologies to organize your business tasks and align on existing and new project goals within your teams.