In my course this week, I was asked to describe a project
that I have done that I experienced issues related to scope creep. Scope creep refers to “the natural tendency
of the client, as well as the project team members, to try to improve the
projects output as the project progresses.” (Portney, 2008) This means that more work was added to the
project as time went by.
I was once part of a team that was creating a “show” for
parents to watch. The children were
going to perform by dressing up as a famous historical figure and their parents
were to guess which character they were.
The project started off with high hopes and intentions. As the project was moving forward, some of
the team members decided that we should also have the students sing a few songs
together on stage. We found appropriate
songs and began to practice. The date of
the “show” was coming quickly. Another
team member decided that we should also have a food and drink for the students
and parents. All of these little details
added up and now we only had a week to ensure that the students knew there
“parts”, were able to sing the songs, and we also had to prepare food, drinks
and have a place to gather. Long story
short, it worked out, but I felt it was very disorganized. The parents were very nice and appreciated
what we had done. To better manage this
in the future, I feel that sticking to a plan of action and making sure to have
all of the details in the beginning of the project would have made the entire
project work more efficiently.
References:
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.