Over the years I have been involved in several
projects that experienced “scope creep”. One of the largest projects with which
I experienced this was originally a project to create an online course for high
school and higher education across the state.
As
I had contracted to do several of these in the past, this was nothing new. However, just as the project scope and
deliverables were being completed, the client decided to move the project due
to political pressure and a consortium of several states wanting to create the
same course. The states in conjunction
with SREB decided to outsource that particular one course project and my role
would be only to import into the statewide Moodle LMS and market the course
along with our other course offerings (I worked for a state education
commission at the time).
Two weeks after
receiving this news, the client came back to ask if I would be willing to take
on the rest of their grant deliverables.
The $50,000 course had now turned into a $500,000 project. As it was a much larger project, the
timeline was extended by 6 months and I was able to define what deliverables I
would provide to make an impact statewide on the number of students becoming
aware of opportunities in post-secondary education. Again, I was tasked as the project manager
for what turned into multiple multimedia deliverables. I would really define
this more as scope explosion rather than scope creep through creep did occur
after the initial explosion.
There was some pressure from stakeholders and
team members to include activities or deliverables that were not originally
envisioned as part of the project as the work ensued. This was especially a problem with the client
who drug their feet when it came to deliverables agreed upon. They were continually coming asking to
add other small projects. As one project
was of high political visibility and included several highly sought advocates
for the cause (Dr. Richard W. Riley, former US Secretary of Education and former SC State Governor for one), I did rework some of the deliverables and adjust timelines midstream.
Throughout the entire process, I had to
maintain a strict approval process in order to meet the deliverables within the
allotted timeframes and continually fought to get time allotted from the
assigned team members’ managers, which had been approved within the initial project
development. However, when it came time
to need them, the team members and equipment were continually pulled for “priorities”
(non-revenue producing) of other projects.
I continually had to go to the project sponsor, the VP of Education, to
get cooperation. One project which was
$50,000, the department manager would not answer emails nor come to
meetings. This was a vital project within
the multiple project work this had become.
Due to time constraints and lack of available subject matter personnel
as they were all within his department, I was forced to outsource this
particular project to an advertising agency.
In the end, I met all the deliverables and the
project(s) assets were beneficial and
met the desired outcomes of the project.
I learned a tremendous amount about project management including
creating and using a Gantt chart to manage large projects. This allowed everyone including the client to
visually see how delays affected not only one small asset or project but also the project as a whole.
