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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Leading and managing projects

Halden Telecom is building a new billing system. The project manager has agreed the scope, but during delivery, sales managers keep requesting extra reports and features, with no formal approval, and the team accepts them to keep the managers happy. The schedule is now slipping and costs are rising. Which project management problem does this best describe, and what is the correct response?

This is scope creep, meaning uncontrolled additions to the agreed project scope. The right response is a formal change control process, so each request is assessed for its impact on time, cost and quality and approved or rejected, rather than quietly absorbed by the team.

  1. AScope creep; apply a formal change control process to assess and approve each requested changeCorrect
  2. BPoor resource levelling; hire more staff to speed up delivery
  3. CRisk transfer failure; pass the extra requests to a supplier by contract
  4. DBenefits realisation failure; cancel the project and restart with new objectives

Explanation

Uncontrolled additions to agreed scope are scope creep. The remedy is formal change control, where each change is assessed for its effect on time, cost, quality and benefits before approval. Adding staff does not address the cause, and cancelling is disproportionate.

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