Navigating scope creep

Have you ever come across a task that seemed trivial only to find yourself hours later with your palms glued to your forehead and your inner voice telling you “Just one more thing and I’m done”? Have you noticed these “one more thing” moments pile up and push you deeper into the rabbit hole?

We’ve all been there: scope creep. Wikipedia defines it as…

Continuous or uncontrolled growth in a project’s scope, at any point after the project begins. This can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented or controlled.

After working in the software industry for almost two decades — from startups such as Reddit to behemoths like Apple, I feel like I should be able to spot scope creep from miles away, but the reality is it’s much sneakier than that. Scope creep creeps up on you when you least expect it. Scope creep has no favorites; it can happen anywhere, no matter the size of the organization or complexity of the project.

Scoping out Scope Creep

No matter what type of project you’re working on or what phase of the project (or your career, for that matter) you’re in, you need to watch out for signs of scope creep. Think of it like checking your speedometer once in a while to make sure you’re not over (or under) the speed limit. To extend the analogy a bit further, it’s important to check your speed early and often, because if you wait for the cop car to show up in your periphery, it’ll probably be too late.

Here are 5 signs to help you identify when you’re entering the danger zone.

Signs of Scope Creep

1. GPS recalculating… When you’re following GPS directions, if you accidentally take a wrong turn, your GPS recalculates the route from your new location. Similarly, when you miss your current milestones or new requirements get added to your existing work, it’s okay to request a recalculation. This is especially helpful if new requirements have been added without old ones being taken off your plate.
2. Washington State, not Washington, D.C.: Midway through your implementation phase, you discovered this is not what the user wants. Either the requirements were unclear or the interpretation was not in line with their expectations. (This could also happen if you’re making far too many assumptions instead of asking questions for further clarifications up front.)
3. Road closures. If you fail to check live traffic advisories before you start your journey, you may find yourself stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Getting out of the traffic jam to opt for an alternate route becomes a frustrating ordeal. Similarly, design changes are easy to manage when they happen early on, but over time it gets harder and harder to change fundamental aspects of a product without thorough regression of the entire system.
4. Estimated time of arrival. Make sure the time of arrival at your destination is reducing as you move along. These types of validation that you are on the right track can be handled by conducting regular demos and getting answers to your questions in a timely manner.
5. Scenic vista point. Enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Take time to celebrate team wins. More importantly, pay attention to their vacation, sick days, and family leave plans.

If you ignore these signs, eventually you may find yourself stressed out, burnt out, and deeply frustrated. But I have good news! If you’re vigilant about looking for these signs, taking them seriously, and adjusting your future plans accordingly, you can save yourself hours, if not weeks, of work in the future.

The best way to think about scope creep is like this:

Scope is going to change if the requirement is important enough or urgent enough. How you react to it is what sets you apart.

Look at scope creep as a normal part of the software development life cycle. Software blossoms gradually as you build it; it helps you uncover sides and shades that weren’t obvious before. Throughout my entire career, I have not met a single person who had a perfect vision of their final product before writing a single line of code. If anyone tells you they do, they’re either lying, delusional, or superhuman.

Best Practices for Avoiding Scope Creep

These skills are so fundamental, I wonder why they don’t teach them in school. (At least they didn’t when I was in school.) In my opinion, these skills would have made me a much better overall engineer straight out of college, instead of dabbling my way forward through trial and error.

Here are some of my tried and tested best practices to prevent scope creep from getting out of control.

Requirement gathering: Gather as much data and information about the project, potential users, and expected features as possible. Make sure you have a signed-off Functional Specification Document, Business Requirement Document, or Product Requirement Document (whichever one your organization follows).

Sizing and estimation: Estimating the amount of work required and sizing the features comprise two of the most crucial parts of any project. Having past experience building similar systems can help immensely during this phase. Have your tech leads and subject-matter experts analyze the work and break down big features into small tasks.

Pro tip: Try using sizing models, such as “small” = 0.5 day; “medium” = 1 day; “large” = 2–3 days; “XL” = 1 week; “XXL” and beyond = the feature is too big, hence you need to break it down further into smaller chunks.

(And again, make sure you carve out a few days for vacations, sick leaves, and family emergencies.)

Small is manageable: Breaking features down helps mitigate a lot of ambiguity. It’s basic human psychology: when you know what precisely needs to be done, things will get done a lot faster; ambiguity leads to speculation, forecasts, and unnecessary time sucks.

Even if your project follows a traditional waterfall model, you should break down abstract tasks into more granular chunks. This is one of the benefits of the Agile Method.

Working demos: It’s crucial to think of features from an end-to-end perspective. If you manage to get one workflow ready, show the working model to your stakeholders. Demos speak louder than words. Even though it sounds scary, give stakeholders access to your demo environment.

Early warning system: When you encounter surprises — either because you received a brand new requirement or because something that seemed deceptively simple is now a giant beast — bring it to everyone’s attention as soon as possible. This gives your team time to come up with alternate solutions and reevaluate schedules if necessary.

Proactively thinking about worst-case scenarios: Here’s a fun activity for any new project: sit with your team and brainstorm worst-case scenarios. Ask them, “What can get in the way of us achieving our goals?” Then list all the worst-case scenarios and find ways you would handle them if they were to happen.

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

Plan your journey properly, course-correct when you stray from the plan, monitor your speed limit, and don’t let any creep distract you along the way. If you follow these steps you’ll reach your destination safely and on time.