Scope creep is one of the most common issues in all projects. It is so common that this should not be consider as an issue. Instead, it should be preemptively managed and anticipated. Scope is always constrained by time and cost.
Setting Anticipation
Project scope can be standardised in many aspect via Agile Templates. By using a baseline with templates, you can anticipate the extent of scope creep for your projects. Rather than setting expectations, you can set anticipation on the type of scope creep. This allows you to allocate the type of resources. High anticipation will result in the need of quality resources to manage scope creep.
Scope Creep is not an Issue
You may find many of the scope creep surfacing in issues logs. Thus, this will place a lot of stress for development team to clear the “issues” for Go Live. You should query the ROI (Returns On Investment) and justifications when such scope creep is listed as issue. For many cases, such issue end up as Change Request (CR) or Backlog items.
Scope creep is a staple of projects. It is time to embrace these human behaviour as scope is often underestimated. Therefore, we shall learn to embrace and manage scope creep wisely.
Danny Kwok 