Dealing with Scope Creep in Microsoft Project

Scope creep. It is the bane of every project manager, and yet it is inevitable. Unless you have planned for it, your schedule will be in a shambles, your project late, and your clients unhappy.

What is Scope Creep?

After a plan has been created in Microsoft Project it is inevitable that changes will be made. As the project proceeds, tasks will need to be added. For example when developing a new product, people might think of features which will supposedly make the product better.

Creep can come from many sources. Managers may promise features to clients without consulting staff to see if they are feasible. New workers on the project often have ideas that can seem good at the time. Embarking on the project often reveals flaws with the original plan, requiring additional tasks to cover shortcomings.

Use Buffers to Absorb Scope Creep

Well developed plans in Microsoft Project have a certain amount of leeway for exactly these situations. It's critical to budget extra time into schedules to cover the implementation of additional ideas. If the extra time has been used up, or wasn't planned for in the first place, there may be other places that time can be borrowed from. Time planned for researching competing products or usability testing could be reduced to allow the implementation of new tasks.

Be careful. It is common for companies to spend so much time adding more that they use up all of their testing time. They release a product with lots of cool features, none of which work well. Don't lose sight of quality when taking time to absorb scope creep.

You Can't Manufacture Time

Most Microsoft Project endeavours eventually reach the point where there is no time left for more tasks. At this stage there are only two options.

The first is to pare down the feature list. Although every feature might seem critical at the time, once you start comparing them you learn which ones are actually critical and which just sound cool. Often this makes a better product. During the development of Microsoft Excel 5, programmers had to cut lots of "critical" features to get the product out. When starting Excel 6, they looked over the list of cut features and realized that not one of them was worth implementing in the new version.

The second choice is to extend the schedule. If the additional work really is necessary, it's going to take more time to implement it. If your deadline is not changeable, then see the preceding paragraph.

One choice you don't have is to expect your staff to work beyond their capacities. This common management mistake makes the situation worse. Staff becomes burned out and makes more mistakes, requiring more fixes, and a late product. Tasks take as long as they take and workers can put in only so many hours.

Scope creep has doomed many a project, but with the right preparations your project will survive it.