Change with Confidence: Answers to the 50 Biggest Questions that Keep Change Leaders Up at Night

Chapter 10

How Do I Avoid Scope Creep?

There is no such thing as scope creep, only scope gallop.

—Cornelius Fichtner

The conditions attached to a promise are forgotten; only the promise is remembered.

—Harold Kerzner

Often the original scope of a project expands without any consideration for necessary additional resources or required timeline changes. Scope creep can involve increasing breadth (such as increasing the number of software modules) or depth (expanding the audience to include more teams). It is easy for a leadership team to increase specifications of software programs or extend the reach of efficiency drives without considering what additional investment is required to deliver the new benefits. They can quickly assume that the bigger ...