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

Zephyr Logistics is launching a new warehouse management system. Midway through the project, several departmental heads each ask for additional reports and screens that were not in the original requirements. The project manager accepts them informally to keep users happy, and the budget and timetable begin to slip. Which project planning problem is mainly illustrated?

The problem is scope creep. Requirements were added informally without assessing time and cost impact, so the agreed scope baseline was not protected. A formal change control process, with approval by the sponsor or steering group, is the proper way to handle such requests.

  1. AScope creep arising from weak change control over the agreed scope baselineCorrect
  2. BOptimism bias in the original estimate of activity durations
  3. CPoor critical path analysis caused by missing dependencies
  4. DA failure of quality assurance because testing was not planned

Explanation

Uncontrolled additions to agreed requirements without formal assessment of their time and cost impact are scope creep. The remedy is a formal change control process against the scope baseline. Optimism bias concerns estimating, not accepted additions, so it is not the main issue here.

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