Scope creep is when the encompassing goals of a project – that could be a writing assignment, a web redesign, an office re-do, or even your overall job requirements – begin to broaden outside the original agreement. It could be something as innocent as “Hey, while you’re at it, could you also give me these XX figures too?” to something larger to “We want to add on 4 people instead of just 2 – it’s just doubling up what you’re already doing right? It’s nothing – you’re doing the same thing, just add a few zeros.”

Whether you’re a consultant or an employee within a larger firm, scope creep can be infuriating in business, but it’s your job to set the boundaries. Most people are not particularly aware of what they are asking for – they hired you as a specialist for a reason, right? Sometimes it takes some education, sometimes it takes some conversation, and sometimes it takes just saying no.

Here are some suggestions as to how you can minimize any negative effect on you:

1.  Work to be clear upfront and set expectations.

Do your best to talk through the exact report, task, product or service you will provide. Include realistic dates for delivery and stay in touch with everyone involved. Know going in what might be a stopping point and be sure to make everyone aware of the parts of the project that are most crucial, the deal stoppers for all the other tasks.

If, like me, you set project rates, include approximately how many hours are included in that project and tell your client upfront how many physical meetings, phone calls, and extra support hand holding that includes. Also communicate how long those meetings will last. And, to cover any last minute requests, include an al a carte overage charge schedule, so that if they want more meetings, they can pay for them. Do all this going into the project, not in the middle or later at invoicing.

2. Speak up and push back.

Don’t think a person realizes what they’re asking for – they probably don’t. And, if they do, they may fully expect you to push back and challenge them. Compulsive negotiators – the type who always, no matter what, think it’s their job to negotiate anything presented – are accustomed to that game. Play it skillfully. Some people will always ask for more. Personally, I try to weed those people out ahead of time and not take them on as clients, but if you didn’t or your industry is packed with them so you can’t avoid them, then it’s your responsibility to speak up and push back.

If the new requests impacts the schedule, say so. If the new requests takes more hours than the original method, say so. It’s their project, you can let them choose. If they want a delay and they feel their request is required, then that’s their choice to make.

What you don’t want to do is nothing. You don’t want to volunteer to absorb the costs. You don’t want to agree to be part of a project where you don’t mention how the changes impact the quality and then end up with a hot mess that you’re ashamed to put your name on. What you don’t want to do is say nothing, the schedule slips, the budget flairs and you get blamed. Speak up and push back!

3. Get it done

If you dawdle in your project completions, of course more stuff is going to get piled on top of you – time is marching on! Create a project plan with small enough milestones that you can complete something, “put it to bed” so to speak, and move on to the next thing. Not only does this help create urgency, but it also makes it very clear that you are going back and doing rework if you have to go back and add work to that task. If all of your milestones are huge, it’s easy to lose motivation, lose momentum, and have additional requests placed on your work. Chunk it down small enough to have completions and large enough to not make managing the project itself another full time job.

Managing scope creep in your business is about managing expectations. It’s also about being confident enough in what needs to get done and when to take a stand when it’s necessary. Always remember that you have to put your name on the project when it’s through. It’s the only way to build a business through referrals and it’s the only way to build a portfolio of work. Stick to your guns, make choices based in reality not ego, and understand that scope creep is a natural phenomenon of the job. Deal with it and you’ll be fine.

Together, we are stronger!

Vicki Flaugher, CEO
aka @Smartwoman

To start, what is a “project”? Simply put, it’s a grouping of activities that result in an end result. Getting your kids out the door to school can be a project, as can shopping, or building a website. Planning a wedding is a great real life example of a project (a REALLY big one!) so let’s use that for our case study. Here’s what you need to know:

First, make a complete task list: List everything, and I mean everything, you can think of that needs to be done, small and big. The minister, the church, the reception, the honeymoon flight arrangements, the shoes, the flowers, the dress, your attendants, buying your lacey negligee, etc., etc., etc.

Once you have the list, you can then group the smaller items under bigger ones. For example, the honeymoon would be the main topic and tasks like make flight arrangements, get passports, book the hotel, pack your suitcase would be sub tasks underneath it. By grouping you can not only see it all and be complete, but it also helps you see what you could delegate off. Delegating big chunks of your work is a way to get more done faster. Hiring a wedding planner is a great example of doing this. You hire someone to manage all the task groupings.

Set a proposed budget: This can be a money budget, a time budget, a resource budget, or all of the above. You need to be as accurate as you can. If a caterer normally charges $50 a plate for what you want to have, budgeting $5 per plate is just silly. Sure you might expect some discount, but don’t build your budget based on getting screaming deals that would make your grandmother blush in embarassment. Relationships need to be honored. Your partners are people who are feeding their familes and sending their kids to college just like anyone else. An honest pay for honest work is fair. Violating this will come back to bite you later on. I am not suggesting that you let yourself be taken advantage of, but if you’ve pushed so hard on the front end, you will have no goodwill left on the back end when you need it.

Next, set the preferred desired date for completion: This would be the day of the wedding, when everything needs to be completed. Much like catching a train, once you set the steps in motion for such a big event it’s relatively difficult (and expensive) to adjust the date, so either things get done on time or they don’t get done. You will be able to readily see, once you do the next step, if this desired date is reasonable. If it is, you can set the final date. If not, you either change the date, or alter the list of tasks you expect to have completed by that date. There’s no getting around this and it’s important to be realistic. Being late to the chapel just simply isn’t an option.

From this first proposed desired date, we back out all of the needed tasks: What I mean by that is, if it takes 10 weeks for your custom designer dress to be made, fitted, and ready, then you have to have that dress decision made no later than 10 weeks from the wedding date. If it takes 3 week to schedule the cake tasting and 3 more weeks for the cake to be ready, then you have to allow a minimum of 6 weeks from the wedding date for that task to be done.

Add some slack: When a task is crucial, it’s foolish to play things to the wire. Don’t overpad, but allowing 10-15% time allowance for the unexpected to happen is a good idea, because the unexpected will. No amount of diva bridezilla behavior is going to change anything when a hurricane shuts down the dress factory that is making your dress. Even if you’re accustomed to pushing to get your way, time is stubborn and has a way of pushing back. Adding some slack to your plan helps out.

Set priorities: Now, you take the task list and identify the drop dead, must have items. You are not getting married if the groom and minister doesn’t show or if you don’t get the marriage license. Those are must haves. The bubble machine with matching clown is not. Identifying must haves vs. nice to haves helps if you have to go to plan B or if you have to make an unexpected adjustment. It also keeps you focused and on time and on track. And, no, everything is not priority one. Give up that idea. It’s simply not true.

Setting priorities also includes identifying items that depend on another. For example, you can’t expect your bouquets to show up on wedding day if you never visited the florist (well, unless you were smart enough to tell someone else to handle it…). These dependencies are crucial, because if the first thing doesn’t get done on time, it cascades down the schedule to everything that depends on it. Be sure you are aware of these relationships so you can make adjustments as needed.

Implement, Adjust, and Enjoy: As you go through your plan, joyfully check off your completes. As you have schedule pushout in your completions, make the needed adjustments, always looking to see if something high in priority is in jeopardy of not getting done. Even though in this example it might be hard to stay flexible, in most cases, you can do that. Keeping your eyes on the true purpose of the project in the first place – in this case to marry the person you love – is the way to not only enjoy the result but also to enjoy the journey. You might only get married once but most projects will include people you want to work with again. Respect, realistic expectations, kind yet firm actions, and a sense of humor will go a long way to making this project and all the future ones successful.

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman