How to Manage Scope Changes in Project Management

The scope can be related to the product features or the project work. Mostly, in traditional project management, the scope is fixed. However, scope changes are common occurrences in project management, and these changes in scope affect other project objectives and baselines.

In today’s blog post, we will discuss what qualifies as scope change, its causes, and how to handle it in project management.

Let’s get started.

What Are Scope Changes?

The scope can be product scope or project scope. Let’s first understand the product scope and what can cause changes in it. 

The product scope is comprised of the product features. For example, for a school building, the product scope can be the number of rooms, floor, paint color, etc. The scope can change due to the client’s request, regulatory requirements, budget constraints, lack of skills or capability, resource constraints, scope creep, gold-plating, etc.

If the product scope changes, all project objectives, including cost, schedule, and scope baselines, are affected. In this case, you will have to review the impact of the change in scope, update all project plan baselines, and get them approved again.

Project scope is the effort required to complete the project. Changes in project scope are due to poor planning, inefficient plan execution, occurrence of unidentified risks, scope creep, etc.

In project scope change, there is rarely any impact on the product features or specifications; they remain the same. The impact is seen on the cost and schedule baselines. For example, the project management team miscalculated the time to complete a task, which took more time than planned, and now your project is behind schedule.

In this case, you will analyze the impact of this delay and try to bring the project back on track using the schedule compression technique. Likewise, you can over or underspend the budget and poorly utilize the resources, affecting your project scope.

How Do Scope Creep and Gold-Plating Change the Scope?

Scope creep and gold-plating are major causes of scope change in project management, and project managers must deal with them constantly.

Scope creep occurs when there are miscommunications and misunderstandings about the scope of work, as well as roles and responsibilities.

In gold-plating, team members add features to the product and hope the client will appreciate it. They do so without properly reviewing the impact of these added features on the other project objectives.

How to Manage Scope Changes in Project Management

#1. Understand the Change

Change in scope can happen due to a stakeholder’s request, scope creep, gold-plating, poor planning, inefficient plan execution, etc.

If the change request is from the client, ask them to submit it formally in written form so you can understand it thoroughly. However, if the change is due to other reasons, as mentioned above, you will ask team members to provide detailed information about the cause of the change so you can understand the root cause of the change.

#2. Analyze the Impact of the Change

After understanding the change, you will analyze the impact of this scope change on other project objectives such as cost, schedule, and other project plans.

For example, a request to add a new feature will increase the project’s duration and cost, while reducing features can reduce the budget and decrease project duration. 

The impact of changes made due to scope creep and gold-plating depends on the changes themselves.

#3. Communicate the Impact to Stakeholders and Get Approval

After preparing the impact of the scope change, you will communicate the result to the project sponsor or client for their review and approval. After the client provides their approval, you will raise the change request to your change control board to get the approval.

However, if the change is due to other issues (e.g., scope creep, gold-plating, poor planning, or inefficient execution), you will still raise the change request to bring the project back on track. However, in this case, the client will not bear the cost of the change; instead, they can apply the deduction or penalty for any delay in project completion.

#4. Implement the Change

You will implement the change as soon as you get approval from the change-control board or management. 

#5. Update the Plan

After implementing the change, you will update all project management plans and baselines to keep them current. You will communicate the change-implementation result to management and the client, as well as provide updated performance reports, as mentioned in the communication management plan.

Summary

The project management environment is dynamic, and changes in scope are inevitable. As a project manager, you must manage these scope changes, which can require changes in the project plans and baseline. Therefore, you must review all changes thoroughly and keep relevant stakeholders informed to get their buy-in.