How many of your projects have delivered on time in the past year? We asked around the office, and everyone had seen project scope changes affect a project milestone. Change is one of the big reasons why projects don’t deliver on time, and yet change is inevitable, especially in larger, longer projects with complex environments and many stakeholders.
Our anecdotal feedback is backed up by research. KPMG’s 2023 global construction industry survey reports that only half of owners’ projects are being completed on time. Risk is a big factor in delays, and over 70% of respondents in that study said that they found increasing the duration of planning to bring more confidence was important now than previously.
Managing project scope is a really important factor in making sure that you can deliver your project on time. So, what’s the deal with making changes?
Scope changes affect deadlines
We’ve worked on a few projects where scope changes have removed items from the deliverables and the project has completed earlier as a result, but that’s rare. Mostly, changes add more time. Even if you end up doing less, the fact that the plan has changed can add complications and delays.
Beyond the direct impact on task duration that extends the timeline, there are two other reasons why changes affect deadlines:
- The critical path changes: New tasks may impact the critical path and delay other project activities.
- Resource availability: Changes in scope may require additional resources, or resources to be reprioritized. If staff aren’t available, that can cause delays.
Often, when stakeholders ask for changes, they don’t have the full picture and don’t realize the downstream implications of what the change will mean. A managed, controlled change process helps surface those implications so everyone can make an informed decision about whether to go ahead with the change (or not). But that doesn’t always happen.
What is scope creep?
Scope creep is the term we use to mean unplanned or uncontrolled changes to the project’s scope that happen after the baseline planning is complete. Those changes lead to extra tasks or objectives, or changes to existing tasks – typically resulting in work taking longer.
We know that change is going to happen. Your client might require something new because of a change in market conditions. Something might be identified at a relatively late moment in the project planning that is going to improve the value delivered to stakeholders or customers. These changes can make scheduling more complicated, but they happen, and we need to respond to them appropriately.
The risk carried by projects is that the change is unmanaged. Uncontrolled changes lead to bloated project scope, where the team is expected to do more without the appropriate extra time or funding being approved. And that’s where overruns kick in.
Managing scope changes without derailing the deadline
Ideally, project leaders would be able to say yes to all changes without there being a substantive impact on deadlines, but often that isn’t possible. So we need to manage the changes in a controlled way. Here’s how to do that.
Use a change control process
Implement a formal change control process to assess, approve, and track changes before they are incorporated into the project plan.
You’ll probably have the process for this set out in the contract if you are supplying the service. Typically, the customer would need to raise a change control notice and the supplier would work out the impact and cost of the change. If that process isn’t clear at the beginning of the project, get a formal process set up as soon as possible as we guarantee you’ll need it at some point!
Carry out an impact analysis
Evaluate the impact of scope changes on timelines, budgets, and resources before committing to them. Involve experts and the client and look at various options or scenarios to find the best, least impactful way forward.
When the analysis is complete, you’ll be able to make an informed choice about whether to do the change. If there are options, you’ll be able to make a recommendation to the decision makers about which route to take. Put forward the options and get the final change formally approved. The contract or process should set out who has the authority to make changes. Normally this is a senior manager on the client’s side.
Revise the schedule
When you’ve got approval for a change, revise the schedule and adjust task dependencies to accommodate new work. Work with professional schedulers to update your project management software with the new information.
The updates will likely include new resource allocations and a revision to capacity planning as well to make sure that staff are available on the new dates to carry out their work. You might also have to add new risks or book out other resources like equipment. You might have to increase the budget or change the way the budget is allocated.
Communicate the impact
Ensure that stakeholders are fully aware of the implications of scope changes on the project timeline and final delivery. Communicate the changes to the team members as well. If you’ve got contractors on the project, you might need to extend their contracts or work with line managers to secure the resources for a longer period.
Rebaseline the schedule
The new schedule becomes your revised baseline, and that’s what you’ll use to track against going forward. Save the historical records and make sure there is an audit trail of what has changed, because we bet someone will ask at some point why the deadline changed.
Scope creep bypasses all of this process and simply expects the team to accommodate new work without any formal impact assessment or approval. We strongly recommend you avoid that, and by talking to the team, you can.
Make sure that they are empowered to say, “You’ll have to take that through the change control process,” if someone directly asks them to make a change to a work package, for example. They need to know the change process is there to support them – it reduces stress for everyone!