Project Management
Training That Delivers

Change happens, and this is never truer than on a project when the smallest thing can go wrong and require adjustments to be made. It is these incidents which, if not handled properly, can lead to scope creep and cause headaches for the project manager, regardless of their skills and experience. This is why managing scope is such an important part of all project management courses. and gaining accreditation such as a project management APM certification.

Let’s take a look at what a project management professional should be doing right now to avoid scope creep.

What is scope creep?

First, we need to make sure we know exactly what we are dealing with. Scope creep is when the requirements, visions or goals of the project grow beyond any original agreement that was made. When this happens, there is no longer such a clear definition to the final outcome of a project or what a successful project will look like, and the responsibilities involved can become a little fuzzy. This can either occur when many seemingly minor changes are added bit by bit to the project or one major change is added to the original brief.

Can scope creep be a good thing?

It is not the changes themselves that are the issue but the way in which they need to be dealt with. These new concepts need to be worked into your project plan, fitting in around other aspects and potentially moving timeframes around. This has the potential to disrupt your end goal, particularly in terms of any agreed deadlines. The later these requests are made, the more likely they are to result in work needing to be redone to accommodate them with can lead to frustration and failure to meet deadlines or deliver what is required..

Scope creep is bad for the project and can be bad for the morale of the whole team, so it is vital to keep on top of it and prevent it from getting out of hand. Here are some of the steps you can take:

How do I fix scope creep?

Know your goals

One of the first things to remember is that in order to keep your project in scope, you need to know exactly what your project goals are. When you know what your goal is, you can make more accurate assessments about the timeframes and budgets involved.

Documentation

One of the best things an effective project management professional can do is learn how to properly set out the requirements of a project. This means, budgets, timelines and any expectations or responsibilities that there should be for stakeholders and team members. Talking about them is good, but you should make sure they are documented correctly as well.

There is plenty of good project management software out there that you can use to help make this task a much more efficient and easy to follow process.

Use your project management software

Having written out your project plan, you can use the same project management software to help you keep on top of the project. You can use it for communication, keeping everything accessible, it can help you keep on schedule and should a problem arise help you see where you might be able to divert resources in order to be able to cope with the unexpected.

Change control process

Of course, all the suggestions so far look at ways of avoiding scope creep. However, it is unlikely you will never have to deal with it.

Projects can run for weeks or even months, so it is highly unlikely that you won’t encounter some changes to your original plan. This is when having the right change control process in place can be vitally important. It will give you the chance to review and approve any reasonable changes. Your change control process offers you a workflow for making sure changes are properly laid out, reviewed and approved before further work begins.

Have a clear schedule

If you want to stick to the scope of your project and avoid scope creep, then task and time management are very important. It is, of course, easy to lose track of where you are up to with tasks, which is why you need to be able to see them broken down and scheduled properly.

If you want to avoid scope creep, then communication is key and is best done on a regular basis. This could be done as stand-up meetings or daily scrums; it doesn’t need to be a long catch up just make it a regular thing.

Communication

Communication really is the most important tool you have in your arsenal as a project manager, whether you are communicating with the rest of your team or with stakeholders how you do it can make all the difference. If you want to ensure that you are in control of the scope of your project, then you also need to learn how to speak to your stakeholders because sometimes in order to avoid scope creep you may need to say no and saying no to people who are in power is not an easy thing.

Protect against “Gold plating.”

Scope creep isn’t something that is always imposed on us. Gold plating is what occurs when an individual works on a task or product beyond the stage of diminishing returns – for example even when you have hit your brief you keep going in case you can add more value to it. This is risky and has the potential to miss the mark completely. Continuing to use up more time on this already finished project does not guarantee that you will end up with a better outcome.

Ensure that the whole team understand what success is in terms of your project, set your goals and stick to them. Sometimes scope creep can occur, but there are certainly things you can do to avoid it where possible.

Project procurement is just one aspect of your project, but as you will learn on all project management courses (for all types of project management certification) it is a very important one.

What is project management procurement?

When it comes to project management, procurement is when you are required to rent, purchase or contract with an external source in order to meet the goals of your project. Just like any other process within your project, these processes need careful management.

In order to manage procurement, you need to ensure that you get the best quality possible from any external vendors that the company employs considering any constraints on time and cost that may exist. Procurement management is a way in which you can handle the process of requisitioning, ordering, sourcing, inspecting, expediting and reconciliating procurement more efficiently.

The process

During the planning stage of any project, you will identify your procurements. You will need a statement of work (SOW) for every external contractor that you use; this is a document that outlines the work being undertaken. Before this, you will need a request for proposal during which several contractors will be able to bid on the job and this will allow you to determine who will receive the contact.

It is really important to ensure that you are comparing like for like completely when looking at different bids, and not simply going for the cheapest bid, as this may not give you everything you could get from another contractor. There are techniques and tools that can help you to deal with this decision. When it comes to asking for bids it is a good idea to cast the net as wide as possible, whilst you may already have some contractors in mind who you might ask to bid advertising can be a useful way of soliciting further bids.

Once you have completed any paperwork linked to the first stage of your procurement process and selected the bid that works best for your project you will need to sign agreements and update your project plan.

It is really important to keep on top of things once you have agreed a contract.

Control the procurement process

When it comes to schedules and budgets, contractors can have a negative impact, this can result in a project going off track at the very least, so it is important to ensure that contractors are included into your overall responsibilities as a manager.

Regular status updates are vital in order to check contractor agreements, review performance of work and to ensure that the requirements outlined in any contracts held are being met. Whilst it is expected that the contractors you have hired will be experts in their own field you should still expect to track and monitor their work in order to ensure that it is going as planned. It can be a good idea to have regular reviews of procurement performance, with audits and inspections to ensure that work is proceeding as it should be. This will allow you to keep managers informed as well.

Negotiating can be one of the more challenging aspects of being a project manager, and the trickiest of all negotiations will take place with a reluctant stakeholder. This is why learning negotiation skills is such an important part of all project management courses. and gaining accreditation such as a project management APM certification.

Whether your stakeholder is a group, an organisation or an individual they will be impacted by the outcome of the project you are working on. Of course, they may have a huge interest in the success of the project, but they can also have a negative influence on the project. Such as when a project has been imposed on individuals or whole departments and they are reluctant to change. When there are multiple people involved in the project, whether they are there from inception or join part way through, a good project manager will need to learn how to manage each of them, even those who do not form a direct part of the project team. When it comes to stakeholders you need them on your side because otherwise they can hinder a project at every turn.

Using the right techniques

When it comes to dealing with your stakeholders it is really important to ensure that they are kept in the loop, this will ensure that they feel connected to the project, and more importantly that they are less likely to feel the need to get involved in every detail of the project.  So, treat them like anything else that is on your task list and prioritise them. Stakeholders who feel like they are being included are more likely to trust your decision making, allowing you to get on with the project.

Communication

One of your most important project management skills is that of communication, which is why it is such an important part of all project management courses. When it comes to your stakeholders it is important to ensure that communication does not just take the form of verbal communication. It can be a good idea to put things in writing so that you both remember what has been agreed. This is particularly important if your stakeholder is involved in multiple projects as it is easy to get confused over which decisions have been made for each project. Having things written down will give a proper record of what has been decided and will ensure that there are no disagreements later on helping you with your negotiations.

Be Tactful

Sometimes there may be a valid reason for a conflict you have with your reluctant stakeholder. Do not just sweep this under the carpet, you still need to achieve a successful outcome for your project whilst meeting the quality that your stakeholder expects. If what they are suggesting is not in the best interests of the project, then it is important that you address this but remember whilst honesty is important it is also necessary to be tactful. Your stakeholder will not want to hear that they are wrong, it is better to make an alternative suggestion that will work rather than simply taking away the option they have suggested.

If there is one way in which the COVID-19 pandemic has tested project professionals then it is almost certain that some of them are managing risks. Whilst this may vary from one region to another, and indeed one industry to another those project management skills are almost certainly being tested to the limit.

There are six principles relating to crisis management that can be useful.

Be clear on your priorities

The first thing that you need to do is take a good look at the crisis that you are facing; there is a good chance that you will not be able to tackle the entire issue in one go. Break it down into sections; you need to consider the health and safety of your employees, continuation of your operation and also continuing any service that you offer to customers. Consider how you will tackle each of these issues and make sure you have your priorities clearly set out.

Put a team together

When it comes to monitoring any crisis risk management, it is important to make sure that you have people overseeing everything. Put together a small team who will be able to meet on a regular basis in order to monitor the situation. This will allow them to adjust the responses that you need to make to the crisis depending on how things are going. Communication within this small team, as well as with other employees on a wider scale is essential to dealing with any crisis. Choosing people with different skills will give you a diverse team who will be able to tackle a wide range of problems.

Consider an approach that evolves

When it comes to tackling those critical decisions you may need to adjust your approach from one decision to the next, this is rarely a one solution fits all type of situation As a project manager it is important to check in with your team on a regular basis to ensure that they know they have your support at all times.

Make sure everyone knows what is going on

Whilst you might only have a small team assisting with the crisis, it is important to let the whole organisation know what is going on. Rumours can spread easily within an organisation, and it is all too easy for people to panic and assume the worst. You don’t need to mention all the details to everyone, but letting them know there is an issue and that it is being worked on can go a long way towards putting people’s fears to rest.

Think outside the box

Once you have put the basic structures in place, got your small team together and communicated with everyone, you need to think about the future. This might mean thinking of ways to do things that you wouldn’t normally use.

Understand what is going on

Sometimes even the best project manager can feel the strain of dealing with a crisis. Understanding exactly what is going on all the time and how to deal with the unforeseen issues that might arise is difficult. If you are feeling the strain of the situation, then you may find a project manager course to help brush up on your skills could really help.

Project reporting can be time-consuming, but with the right tools and methods it doesn’t need to be. It doesn’t matter what project management tools you are using, you need to make sure that you are using ones that have the ability to report project data easily as well as being able to easily share the information with all relevant parties.

It is essential to have access to accurate and up-to-date project reports so that you can show the current project status, how a project is progressing and offer a clear and up to date picture to all of the people who are involved. Here are just a few reporting tips for any project.

Focus on producing project data that is high quality

Whatever project you are working on, regardless of the industry, you may have people who are updating the project details and others looking for updates at similar times. As a project manager it is essential that you make sure that essential data is being entered correctly and as soon as possible by everyone. Make sure that all your team members understand how to use whatever software you have as effectively as possible, if they don’t know how to use it then they won’t be able to update it properly and the quality of the data won’t be good enough.

Know your audience

Every project is different, every project team is different and or course every stakeholder is different, so you need to make sure that you are using the right project reporting for your audience. For some audiences, this might mean using simple reports, for others you might need to supply information in much more detail.

So, make sure you know your audience and tailor your reporting accordingly, using more flexible software that covers a range of options should make your reporting much more manageable.

Automated reminders

In an ideal world, everyone in your team would be making sure to check in regularly and see what updates there were on the project and what things they needed to do next. But this doesn’t always happen, and when it doesn’t, you need to make sure that you have processes in place.

Automatic notifications and alerts may seem a bit basic, but they do work, and people do take notice of them so make sure that you set them up. They will also assist you in making sure that there is no information, no task that falls through the cracks and is missed.

You can even set your system up so that at the end of the week each member of the project team receives an update letting them know what has been achieved.

Conclusion

Ultimately the key to effective reporting is to choose a reporting system that works for you and your team, ensure that everyone knows exactly how to use it to get the most from it and that it is actually used for its purpose. This will help take the hassle out of your reporting processes and ensure everyone involved receives the right information at the right time.