Control Creeping Costs and Time Loss
What is Scope Creep? It can have different meanings in various industries and situations but for freelance designers, scope creep is when the requirements of a design project keep changing or growing beyond what we initially expected. In Project Management 101, About.com Management Guide F. John Reh writes, "Scope creep is the piling up of small changes that by themselves are manageable, but in aggregate are significant."
How Scope Creep Hurts When the client changes their mind about what they want, isn't sure what they want, keeps asking for one more little tweak, yet another revision, or keeps ignoring intermediate deadlines it results in you, the designer, having to rush to complete the project on schedule.
One little change is no big deal, twenty are. Footing the bill for one rush delivery won't eat into profits much, but it adds up quickly if the time crunches continue. If you don't nip it in the bud you could find yourself creeping toward a big time loss, monetary loss, and possibly hair loss on that job.
What Does Your Contract Say? Some ways to counteract scope creep are found in your freelance design contract. By asking the right questions and getting as many project details as possible you help ensure that you and the client both understand the scope of the job. It can help eliminate some surprises. If the client is wishy-washy about what they need, that's a danger sign of impending scope creep.
Additionally, you'll want to address payment for additional expenses such as Author's Alterations, rush delivery fees, and other miscellaneous expenses that crop up If a client understands up front that their revisions and last minute changes are going to cost more money they may be less likely to keep asking for endless changes.
Find More Ways to Identify and Deal With Scope Creep Here's what others have to say about dealing with fussy or indecisive clients, endless changes, and shifting requirements or timelines, especially as it applies to freelance graphic design and desktop publishing projects.
- The Wave Model, An Analysis of Scope Creep
Will you recognize it when it starts creeping up on you. Postive Space describes the four waves of scope creep. I like wave 2 where it warns you to look out for words like "Quick, Simple, Easy, Small." - 8 Tips for Creative Soloprenuers
At BoDo Neil Tortella addresses scope creep in tip #8 and the other seven tips contain lots of good advice as well. - Eight Tips on How to Manage Feature Creep
Feature creep is another name for scope creep. It often applies to product development, such as software that keeps getting more and more (often unnecessary or poorly thought out) features added to it. At Six Revisions Jacob Gube has suggestions on how to manage it in Web design and development or other projects. - Realizing the Value of Project Management
For a freelance designer, part of project management is a contract. It is a useful tool for handling much of what About.com Consulting / Freelance Guide Shannon Belew describes in this article -- including preventing scope creep.
Comments
Successful project management is all about managing project creep keeping the expectations of clients and team members in line. We use our SaaS PM system – Vertabase (http://www.vertabase.com) – to keep our team in line – that tend to pursue new ideas that go outside of the scope that was originally envisioned by the clients. The Enemy is us! As they say.
I will show my team your post – thanks!
Well the problem is that in a lot of cases the client (especially in the case of a small freelance work) does not know exactly what s/he wants, so Scope Creep is almost always a factor.