A few years ago I was hired to revise the curriculum for my district’s music department. I would be understating things if I were to tell you that this was a very frustrating experience. At the time, I didn’t know what I’ve recently learned about projects and scope creep. I only knew that each time I thought I was done, my boss would redefine the project, and send me back to work. Looking back, I can see that the scope of the project was never defined at all. I was told what to do (align units with the national standards), and how to do it (backwards design, a la Wiggins and McTighe). I was also told my hourly wage, and the maximum hours for which I would be paid. The project actually required more than twice that number of hours, but it was understood that I would only be allowed to bill that number.
In this project, I was both writer and SME. I guess you could say that my supervisor, who was not a music educator, acted as the project manager. Looking back, I can see that a clearly defined Project Charter, WBS, and Scope Statement would have helped both of us to see where this project was going, and what limitations there would be. If we had calculated the hours of work required to create each unit, we would have been able to prioritize, and select units, or standards, or grade levels on which to focus. If we had put these things in writing, we could have referred back to these documents periodically, and used them to stay on track. The additions my supervisor requested were great ideas, but they went beyond what resources covered. Because we didn’t define the scope, there was creep galore! Neither of us knew how to define the project, so it went badly out of hand. Since there were no provisions for increasing the budget, and since I could not get paid until she signed off on my work, I ended up putting in an extra, unpaid 50 hours of work.
This project was the source of a lot of friction between me and my supervisor. That could have been avoided, had we both had the sense to define and document the project. The project charter, WBS, schedule, and scope statement can help keep things efficient, effective, and professional, thus eliminating the sense that the issues involved are personal.
Hi Liz –
Your experience sounds like a great example of trying to hit a moving target. We have learned so much in this course about how to define, break down, schedule, and control a project that it’s easy to see how it applies to so many areas outside of instructional design. Knowing what you know now, I’ll bet you could get from point A to point B without taking a detour. Having goals in writing makes a lot of difference and any time you get pointed in another direction, it’s easy to refer back to the original plan. You did a nice job of explaining a frustrating predicament!
Portny, et al. (2008) find that identifying potential pitfalls earlier in the stage of the project enables the project team with more transparency to avoid potential risks such as scope creep. In relation to this project one potential pitfall would have been the identification of “all activities, set realistic estimates of task durations, consider task interdepencies, identify needed skills, and estimate person-hours in sufficient detail” (p.106). The reasoning for such a pitfall may be in direct relation to pressure from other groups or leadership (e.g. Board of Education) to implement the desired changes within a certain timeframe within a specific budget. Having been on a large project managed from a top-down approach, time constraints and scope creep were frequent. From personal lessons learned one suggestion would be to initiate an agreement with the project manager or team to have a change control process (p. 347) to effective manage change whether in direct relation to scope creep or not.
Resource
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.