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Project Scope Creep Case Study - No Way Out

October 19, 2007 | Author: admin | Filed under: Project Scope Management, Scope Change Control, Process of Change Control

Project Scope Creep Case Study - No Way Out
By Claudio Locicero

Rarely does a project end where it was envisioned to at the beginning due to scope creep. Scope creep is usually caused by a redefinition of a client’s requirements which may or may not affect budget and timelines. How changes are managed and controlled is quite important in maintaining focus, momentum, and the bottom line…but there are times when a project team has no way out. In one particular project for a Middle Eastern country’s air force which was subcontracted to my company by a well known international consultancy is an exceptional scope creep case. The initial 18 month project called for setting up three separate network infrastructures in 65 buildings on one air base, interconnecting the buildings to the main and backup datacenters along with all the associated civil work and fiber laying, then interconnecting the datacenters to their headquarters which was located over 140 kilometers away.

No sooner than the project started that the consultancy received an unofficial request to add another building to the project. Since this project was actually funded by the U.S. Government, the paperwork to have even a decimal point changed on the contract would be so difficult that obtaining Congressional Approval for a Supreme Court nominee would be an easier task. Understanding the difficulty of having contracts changed and wanting to maintain good will with the client, the consultancy agreed to add the building which then started a chain reaction of requests. Sixty-six buildings soon grew to 78 and the consultancy had to eventually put its foot down and explain to the client that they could not give up any more of their profit and if they needed to include more buildings then additional funds would have to be requisitioned and another contract obtained. The consultancy had also already eaten through the slush fund that the U.S. Government had set up knowing that the client would ask for additional services.

My company maintained that our contract specified 65 buildings which were surveyed and proposals submitted on. The additional buildings were eventually included for an additional cost which the consultancy negotiated with my company’s senior management.

Unfortunately, in this case, even with all the arguments for better change management, there was no way out for the consultancy and it had to give up as much as it could because it was performing a calculated risk. The project was supposed to be the first of six identical projects at various air bases around this Middle Eastern country, and the consultancy wanted to receive a good recommendation so that it could successfully bid on those additional projects. The consultancy was willing to cut profit on this project so that it could make an overall financial windfall on the next five which was to be issued as one mega-project. The commander of this first air base knew about the additional contract and kept the carrot of his recommendation dangling in front of the consultancy after each request for an additional building.

Although not usually a favorable project activity, this case does illustrate that sometimes scope creep can be a necessary evil if by accepting short term losses a business, in return, expects long term gains. I suppose that this is one way to define the cost of doing business. Oh, and by the way, immediately after the first project was successfully completed, funding for the mega-project was withdrawn due to re-prioritization of the client’s objectives.

Written by Claudio LoCicero, M.S.

Over his career he has held several technical and management positions both in the United States and overseas within the private and government sectors.

He holds a Master of Science in Information Technology with an Information Security Specialization from a university designated as a National Security Agency Certified Center of Academic Excellence for Information Assurance. He also holds numerous professional certifications such as the Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation, along with several other professional certifications from Cisco, Microsoft, and the National Security Agency (NSA).

He is an active member of the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2), Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), and the Project Management Institute (PMI).

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