Scope Creep is like going into the supermarket for one ingredient but leaving with a cart full of items, or without the item at all.
Less than one year ago I became the director of allied health education for a start- up private post- secondary career school. While on probation the campus president added two more job titles with significantly separate responsibilities to my existing position. One of the positions, academic effectiveness coordinator required the development of a student retention plan. The president identified the dean of students and the academic effectiveness coordinator to complete this project with final approval by him. Following our kick off meeting, WBS, and proof of concept documents, the president decided to allow the attendance coordinator to join (as per her request) to “help us revise” these documents. More specifically the early intervention form became her focus. Suddenly the project was veering away from overall retention and steering toward the attendance coordinator superseding the dean of students. This young lady thought the font should be in (comic sans ms); similar to what you would expect to find in an early child development activity. In addition to this, she wanted for everyone to be responsible for what was clearly her job and insisted on requiring each department to sign off that they had in fact done her work. Everyone was so taken back at the clearly determined missteps. The dean, the registrar (someone whose opinion the president respected) and I had to have a side bar meeting with the president and once it was clear he had given the attendance coordinator carte blanch serious consideration whether to continue or withdraw was weighed by everyone. The dean of students (PM) was very determined to create a retention plan that would actually cause students to want to remain in school until completion and not simply prevent the attendance coordinator from doing her job. The dean requested the form be drafted in such a way that the attendance coordinator had to follow up with each student and then bring her decisions in front of the retention board. After these minor changes the attendance coordinator met with the campus president and the retention plan, quite brilliant I may add was never realized or approved. I was required to revise it three times following the termination of the dean. Sometimes, you can have every process covered and plan to manage a successful project but if the entire team is not in support of it or if there are hidden stakeholders, motives or personal relationships within the team dynamic it can be difficult for any PM to keep control. The team was able to produce a very realistic retention plan. Behind the scenes the attendance coordinator and campus president had a professional and private relationship that threatened the ability of the team and quality of the process. Looking back I could have met with the president and asked him informally how each position at the time was expected to depend on this plan. I could have asked every member for their feedback early on and reached a consensus and avoided the stepping on toes which ensued. Stolovitch advises project managers that 90% of a projects communication is what is not said. Furthermore, if we had a more structured communication and change of scope request plan our dean of students would have been able to avoid scope creep without it becoming so personal.
Reference:
Stolovitch, H., (2011) “Project Management and instructional Design”. Walden University. [Video]. Baltimore, Maryland: Laureate Education, Inc. Available: EDUC-6145-4 Project Management in Education and Training.
