Managing Ongoing Projects--Understanding Scope Creep

Week 6: Managing Ongoing Projects



Understanding Scope Creep:


In this course I have struggled with relating Project Management to situations in my own life. But thanks to a blessing of fate the IT on campus came by my classroom yesterday looking for a computer that needed updating. As we waited for the antiquated PC’s to upload he inquired about my PDF creation issues in my software. Before long he stated had been a project manager for a length of time prior to becoming the campus IT. What a stroke of luck, he help me related to project management on terms related to my current job. He told me not to stress so much I could not possible completely understand how to be a project manager in eight weeks. I told him of my project and my concerns, he told me to take a deep breath and remember a project is just a problem with a formulated solution. He had my attention I work with formulas all day as a math teacher.


He stated that as a teacher and single parent I manage things all the time and they have the same aspects as most projects. I set a budget, formulate a goal, and build a plan for success utilizing my team. He said you deal with Scope Creep where you have to make changes in a project once it has started. You may have to adjust the original purpose, timeline, or budget. I was amazed that he was right, I manage projects continuously and just considered them life or my job.


I recently discovered the Project Charter is the key to uniting stakeholders and the team under a common goal. This communication tool used in the early stages of communication brings all the parties involved under a single scope definition. Later you should use this Charter as the compass to decide if requested changes fall within the defined and agreed upon scope.


One of the biggest issues in preventing scope creep is defining what “scope” is. Scope simply put encompasses all the work that is agreed to be done, but in my mind also defines what work won’t be considered part of the project. Often times defining what will not be included in the project is easier than defining what will be in the project. The deliverables in the Scope is the statement of work document, a narrative description of products, services, or results to be supplied. You need to define a simple easy to use change process at the onset. Such as, “Send all changes to Crystal in IT”.

Project Management requires five basic skills to assure you success as a leader:

• Foresight/Problem solving skills

• Integrity

• Motivational Ability

• Intelligence

• Competency/ Experience

As a Math Teacher and Parent I exuded these skills in my day to project management. From the Project Manger of a large scale project I still lack the competency/ experience to successfully manage a large scale project on my own. My research has taught me that I will gain this knowledge with practice and real world experience. I will continue to gain the knowledge I need to feel competent as a PM and with time the experience needed to lead a project.






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


Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.a.). Practitioner voices: Overcoming ‘scope creep’ [Multimedia]. Project Management in Education and Training. Retrieved from Week two resources.


Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (n.d.b.). Project management concerns: ‘Scope creep’ [Multimedia]. Project Management in Education and Training. Retrieved from Week two resources.


Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., & Sutton, M. (2008). Project management in practice: Third edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Murphy, C. (1994). Utilizing project management techniques in the design of instructional materials. Performance & Instruction, 33(3), 9–11.
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.