Although monitoring and controlling the progress of a project usually ensures that the project remains on course, sometimes changes become inevitable even midway through the project for a number of reasons. My experience from the instructional projects that I have participated in shows that scope creep is a common phenomenon which is not so much the problem as the ability to cope with it because most times these changes are neither expected nor planned for.
I recall an instructional project that my team embarked upon some years back and some of the creep issues that we encountered. The project was the development of what we referred to as a ‘Goals Education Program’ (GEP) which involved designing a set of instructions and exercises on worksheets aimed at teaching adolescents how to create productive and satisfying lives through setting and achieving their own goals. The project focused on teaching goal setting and goal achievement strategies as tools for empowering adolescents and the team consisted of three experienced teachers one of whom is also a multimedia developer. The project had the following as the deliverables;
• A one hour pre-exercise lecture using Power Point presentations to give the audience a general overview of goals and what goal setting means.
• Development of three goal setting exercises and relevant worksheets.
• Designing a Goal Card which students would fill and keep after completing the three exercises.
In spite of the detailed planning that preceded the activation of the project, a number of issues cropped up especially during the perform phase. We discovered only during the perform phase that there was the need for some improvements which were necessary for the achievement of the project objectives but were not considered during the planning. Because these were discovered late, the project had to undergo some changes. According to Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer (2008), “new technologies and materials become available or new requirements and needs become apparent during a project; any of these can lead to changed projects. The later these changes are made in the project, the more difficult and costly they become” (p.346).
The following scope creep issues occurred during the project;
• There was the need to restructure the main lecture to include strategies for setting goals in other areas of life as against the strictly academic goals which the project emphasized. This meant diversification of the goal areas and improving the presentation to cater for students who have had some experience with goal setting especially from home. This also meant redesigning the worksheets.
• One of the exercises was found to be too short and needed to be expanded. But this would require allocating additional time to the exercise which also meant going beyond the one and half hours usually tailored for the exercise and allowed by the school authorities.
• Another issue was how the achievement of the goals set by the students would be tracked to determine the achievement of the project objectives? Including this in the project plan would mean collecting and maintaining a data bank which will have to be constantly monitored and updated. This translates to additional cost, time and design.
Since we had already lined up series of lectures based on appointment, we couldn’t stop the project to undertake any improvements. We therefore considered either going on with the project and the improvements at the same time or rescheduling a few early appointments to enable us complete the improvements while we repeat (at our own cost) the presentations we had already made.
Looking back on the experience now, and with the benefit of new knowledge of project management, a few things could have been done to control the scope of the project. First, the planning should have been more detailed and fully documented. According to Portny et al, “the success of a project depends on how clear and accurate the plan is and whether people believe they can achieve it” (p.79). A clear and accurate plan would have clearly identified the need for additional experts in instructional design and motivational speaking. When individuals who will perform the different roles in the project are identified and assigned, most of the issues that caused the project to creep could have been identified and tackled early enough.
Reference:
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.![]()
I recall an instructional project that my team embarked upon some years back and some of the creep issues that we encountered. The project was the development of what we referred to as a ‘Goals Education Program’ (GEP) which involved designing a set of instructions and exercises on worksheets aimed at teaching adolescents how to create productive and satisfying lives through setting and achieving their own goals. The project focused on teaching goal setting and goal achievement strategies as tools for empowering adolescents and the team consisted of three experienced teachers one of whom is also a multimedia developer. The project had the following as the deliverables;
• A one hour pre-exercise lecture using Power Point presentations to give the audience a general overview of goals and what goal setting means.
• Development of three goal setting exercises and relevant worksheets.
• Designing a Goal Card which students would fill and keep after completing the three exercises.
In spite of the detailed planning that preceded the activation of the project, a number of issues cropped up especially during the perform phase. We discovered only during the perform phase that there was the need for some improvements which were necessary for the achievement of the project objectives but were not considered during the planning. Because these were discovered late, the project had to undergo some changes. According to Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton and Kramer (2008), “new technologies and materials become available or new requirements and needs become apparent during a project; any of these can lead to changed projects. The later these changes are made in the project, the more difficult and costly they become” (p.346).
The following scope creep issues occurred during the project;
• There was the need to restructure the main lecture to include strategies for setting goals in other areas of life as against the strictly academic goals which the project emphasized. This meant diversification of the goal areas and improving the presentation to cater for students who have had some experience with goal setting especially from home. This also meant redesigning the worksheets.
• One of the exercises was found to be too short and needed to be expanded. But this would require allocating additional time to the exercise which also meant going beyond the one and half hours usually tailored for the exercise and allowed by the school authorities.
• Another issue was how the achievement of the goals set by the students would be tracked to determine the achievement of the project objectives? Including this in the project plan would mean collecting and maintaining a data bank which will have to be constantly monitored and updated. This translates to additional cost, time and design.
Since we had already lined up series of lectures based on appointment, we couldn’t stop the project to undertake any improvements. We therefore considered either going on with the project and the improvements at the same time or rescheduling a few early appointments to enable us complete the improvements while we repeat (at our own cost) the presentations we had already made.
Looking back on the experience now, and with the benefit of new knowledge of project management, a few things could have been done to control the scope of the project. First, the planning should have been more detailed and fully documented. According to Portny et al, “the success of a project depends on how clear and accurate the plan is and whether people believe they can achieve it” (p.79). A clear and accurate plan would have clearly identified the need for additional experts in instructional design and motivational speaking. When individuals who will perform the different roles in the project are identified and assigned, most of the issues that caused the project to creep could have been identified and tackled early enough.
Reference:
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
