UPI Study › Courses › Project Management › Free lessons › Lesson 9.8 Free with a free account
Scope Change Management and Project Realignment
Project Management · Chapter 9: Project Monitoring, Control, and Performance ManagementSection 9.8 · lesson 62 of 7315 min · free with a free account
Free preview
Create a free account to keep watching
It takes a minute and costs nothing. Your free account unlocks all of Chapter 1 and 3 more lessons of Project Management.
Lesson complete
Earn the 3 college credits for Project Management
Enrolling adds a quiz after each lesson, the graded work and the official transcript. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.
Next lesson: Project Closeout Procedures and Their Importance →← Adapting to and Controlling Schedule ChangesNext lesson: Project Closeout Procedures and Their Importance →
In this lesson
Separate scope creep from approved change and decide requests on evidence.
- Distinguish scope creep, gold plating and approved scope changes
- Assess a scope request's effect on schedule, cost, quality, risk and benefits
- Compare accepting, rejecting, deferring and trading off a request using net gain and fixed limits
- Explain baseline updates, recovery options, cancellation and scope verification
Free study notes
Get this lesson's notes by email
The key points and 4 practice questions with answers, in your inbox. One email, free.
One email. Unsubscribe in one click.
Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (2,042 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Question
Family Accounts on a Fixed Grant
Late in the build of Willowbrook's new patient portal, Helen, the sponsor, has an idea: family accounts, so a parent can book for the whole household. The figures here are made up. The portal is paid for by a fixed community-health grant of two hundred forty thousand dollars, and the launch is tied to flu-season sign-ups. Helen won't go back to the funder for more. Priya can say yes, no, later, or something else. Which should she choose, and how would she show it's right?
Key Distinction
Scope Creep Versus Approved Change
First, a distinction. Scope creep is uncontrolled growth in scope, with no matching change to time, cost, resources or quality targets. An approved scope change is requested, assessed and decided by whoever has authority, and recorded with the adjustments it needs. The test isn't size, or whether it's a good idea. A tiny addition made quietly is creep. A large one that was assessed, authorized and funded is a change. They differ in origin, authorization, impact analysis and documentation. Above all, they differ in the baseline: creep leaves it unchanged while the work drifts away. Then the project seems to overspend, when it's really doing more than was agreed.
Sources of Requests
Five Origins Including Gold Plating
Scope requests come from five common sources. A client request, often after seeing partial results. Stakeholder discovery: learning late that a group, or a need, was missed. A market or regulation shift, such as a new rule. A technical finding, like a component that can't do what was assumed. And gold plating: the team adding features or polish nobody asked for. Gold plating and creep are related, but not the same. Creep is the uncontrolled outcome, from any source. Gold plating is a source, and since nobody asked for it, it's always creep. A client addition accepted informally fails the authorization test, and goes through the change process. Gold plating fails earlier: no requirement wants it. It's fixed by tying work to requirements. And not all change is unwelcome. A new rule may make a deliverable unlawful unless it changes. A project that refuses every change can deliver exactly what was written, and find nobody needs it.
Quick Check
A Rota Page Built in the Evenings
Quick check. A front-desk supervisor, not on the stakeholder list, emails Marcus asking for a staff rota page. He builds it in the evenings, and tells no one. How should it be classified? Pause, and decide. Scope creep. It was never requested through the process, assessed, or authorized, and the baseline doesn't show it. It isn't gold plating, because someone did ask for it: the fault is the missing authorization, not an unrequested idea. And nobody is assigned to maintain it.
Change Request
Logging Additions and Removals Alike
So Priya logs Helen's idea as change request fourteen, through the same process used for any change. A scope request names the deliverable added, removed or altered, where it sits in the work breakdown structure, and who asked, and why. A request to remove scope enters the same way, because dropping a deliverable without authority is creep in reverse. Scope sits under every other constraint, so a scope change almost always moves several at once. And authority follows the process: within the manager's tolerance, the manager decides. Beyond it, the sponsor or change board.
Impact Analysis
Pricing the Family Accounts Feature
Impact analysis asks what the change would do to each constraint, and to the project's reason for existing: schedule, cost, quality, risk, and benefits. Marcus breaks the feature into three activities, one after another. Building the linked-account engine: twenty-two thousand dollars and nine days. Connecting it to the booking and account pages: eight thousand and three days. Testing it, while re-testing booking: six thousand and three days. That adds thirty-six thousand dollars and fifteen working days. The budget would become two hundred seventy-six thousand, fifteen percent more, and the duration a hundred thirty-five days instead of a hundred twenty, twelve and a half percent more. That assumes the work lies on the chain that sets the finish, so the days add one for one.
Quality, Risk, Benefits
Test Load, Expected Risk and Weak Benefits
Quality. Linked accounts must show exactly the right appointments, so the feature adds fourteen test cases, and late change tends to squeeze re-testing. Quality impact: medium. Risk. Expected cost is probability times impact. The new risk is a linked account showing the wrong bookings, which patients dispute: thirty percent times twenty thousand dollars is six thousand. That goes in the risk register, not into the thirty-six thousand. Risk impact: medium. Benefits. Helen expects more bookings made online, worth sixty thousand dollars over two years. That's the weakest figure, a forecast made by the person who wants the feature. At half that, thirty thousand, the benefit minus the added cost would be minus six thousand. The matrix decides nothing by itself. It puts the judgment on one page, for the decision-maker.
Decision Options
Accept, Reject, Defer or Trade Off
A decision-maker has four options. Accept: approve, and adjust the baselines, so the sponsor must supply the extra money or time. It's sound when the benefit justifies the impact, and the sponsor can fund it. Reject: decline, and leave the baselines alone. It's sound when the benefit doesn't justify the impact, or the request serves no stated objective. Defer: keep it on record, and move it to a later release or project. It's sound when it's valuable, but not needed for this project's objectives, and can be added later without large rework. Trade off: approve while holding a limit, by de-scoping, formally removing other work, or by relaxing a different constraint. It's sound when the limits are fixed and other, less valuable scope can go.
Worked Example
Net Gain of Each Option Compared
Now apply all four. Compare them by net gain: the change in two-year benefit, minus the change in cost. Two packages haven't started yet: an interactive clinic map, and a photo gallery of the clinics. Accept: budget two hundred seventy-six thousand, and a hundred thirty-five days. Net gain, sixty minus thirty-six: twenty-four thousand. But it needs money and time the funder won't give. Reject: nothing changes, the sixty thousand of benefit is lost, and the net gain is zero. Defer: built later, it must reopen tested pages, so it costs forty thousand. Live six months after launch, it earns eighteen of twenty-four months: forty-five thousand. Net gain, five thousand. Trade off: drop the map, twenty-one thousand and nine days, and the gallery, fifteen thousand and six days. That frees thirty-six thousand and fifteen days, so both limits hold. Their benefit, twenty thousand, is lost, so the net gain is forty thousand. Dropping only the map would leave fifteen thousand and six days over. Only the gallery, twenty-one thousand and nine days over.
Cautions
Assumptions Behind the Winning Trade-Off
On these figures, the trade-off wins without moving either limit. But three cautions. The savings equal the full estimates, only because neither package had started. The days transfer one for one, only if the dropped work lies on the same chain as the new work. And the ranking rests on estimated benefits, leaves out the six thousand of risk, and any value placed on a clinic map. A board with other estimates, or other values, could reasonably choose differently.
Quick Check
Deferring Text-Message Reminders
Quick check. Helen also asks for text-message appointment reminders. Patients would like them. Every project objective is met without them, and a separate messaging service could add them after launch, leaving tested pages alone. The limits are fixed, and nothing of lower value is left to drop. Which decision fits? Pause, and decide. Defer. Keep the request on record, and move it to a later release. Accepting needs money and time the funder won't give, and rejecting throws away real value that can be had later at little extra cost.
Baseline Update
Revising Every Document After Approval
Once a change is approved, the scope baseline is replaced by a new version. The scope baseline is the approved scope statement, plus the work breakdown structure, and its dictionary, which gives each element a description, acceptance criteria and an owner. The scope statement is amended to cite the change request, with a version and a date, and the original wording is kept. In the breakdown, packages are added, or removed, and removed codes are retired, never reused. Then the schedule and cost baselines are revised to match, the test plan gains the new cases, the risk register gains the new risk, and anyone expecting the dropped items is told. A change is complete only when every document that mentions it agrees. A baseline updated while the test plan isn't gives a feature that's built and never tested. Keep every version, and a running total of change against the original. Many small changes, each approved on its merits, can add up to a very different project from the one that was funded.
Project Recovery
Re-plan, De-scope or Add Resources
Sometimes scope change signals deeper trouble: repeated requests, repeated re-baselining, a cost forecast above the approved budget, falling benefits, or a fading sponsor. Recovery options aim to return a project to an achievable plan. Re-plan: a new baseline from what's now known, approved by the sponsor. Without keeping old versions, repeated re-planning hides slippage. De-scope: remove lower-value scope, requested, decided and recorded, so what matters most is delivered. Add resources: people, equipment or money, though newcomers need time to learn, and some work can't be divided. When should a project stop instead? One view: decide on future costs and benefits alone. Money already spent can't be recovered, and organizations tend to continue too long. The other: late forecasts are unreliable, stopping destroys learning and options, and duties to contractors, staff and the public matter too. How much weight each deserves is contested. No side is taken here.
Cancellation
Stopping a Project as a Formal Decision
Canceling a project is a formal decision, by whoever approved it, to stop the project before its scope is complete. It's a legitimate outcome of control. The failure is continuing after the reason to continue has gone. Consider it when benefits can't be achieved, remaining cost exceeds remaining benefit, the need has gone, a technical obstacle can't be overcome, funding is withdrawn, or risk exceeds what the organization will tolerate. The decision record holds the analysis, the options including recovery, the decision, who made it and when, the state of the work, and the lessons. A wind-down stops work in order: no new commitments, prompt word to stakeholders, settled supplier contracts, people and equipment reassigned, and records archived. Contract and staff matters can have legal consequences, so consult counsel first.
Scope Verification
Checking Deliverables Against the Current Baseline
At the end, scope verification checks each completed deliverable against the current scope baseline, using the acceptance criteria in the dictionary. It records gaps, and extras: features nobody agreed to are a finding too, which is one place gold plating gets caught. Verification asks whether what was built is what was agreed. Deliverable approval is a separate, formal decision by an authorized person to accept it. Verification supplies the evidence for that decision. Confuse them, and you get a signature with no check behind it, or a check with nobody deciding. And verifying against an out-of-date baseline fails work that matches the change. So record every scope request, whatever its outcome, including rejected ones, so the reasoning survives. For deferred ones, record where they're parked, and when they'll be reviewed. Closeout acceptance builds on that record.
Case Resolved
Trading Away the Map and Gallery
Back to Helen's family accounts. Helen leaned toward accepting. Priya showed that acceptance needed thirty-six thousand dollars and fifteen days the funder wouldn't give, and that deferral netted only five thousand. She confirmed the map and gallery hadn't started, and lay on the same chain as the new work. And she tested the weak figure: at half the benefit, accepting would lose six thousand, while the trade-off would still gain ten thousand. So Willowbrook traded off. It gave up the map and the gallery, and their twenty thousand of benefit, carried six thousand of risk exposure, and depended on one unproven forecast. Priya recorded the decision, issued version two of the baseline, with every document updated, put the dropped items on the deferred list, and scheduled a review of family-account uptake after launch.
Key Takeaways
Controlling Scope From Request to Verification
To recap: creep and an approved change differ in how the change was handled, not in its size. Assess every request across schedule, cost, quality, risk and benefits. Then accept, reject, defer, or trade off, using the facts and the fixed limits. Update the scope baseline and every document that mentions the change, and keep each version. And when change signals deeper trouble, consider recovery, or a properly recorded decision to stop, and verify against the current baseline.
About Project Management at UPI Study
Project Management (Business 230) is a self-paced online course of 73 video lessons in 12 chapters, from starting and defining a project to planning, budgets, scheduling tools, proposals, contracts, execution, monitoring, closure, teams and certification. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.
Every lesson transcript is free on pages like this one, and the videos are free with a free UPI Study account. Enrolling adds a practice quiz after each lesson, the graded work and final exam that earn the credit, lifetime access, and an official transcript on completion. UPI Study has helped over 130,000 students with college credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Enroll now → Course details Download the syllabus All Business courses Every course with PRO →
Why take it here
Why students take Project Management with UPI Study
Where the credit goes
Universities that work with NCCRS
Project Management carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Thomas Edison State UniversitySigned partner
University of the PeopleSigned partner
Charter Oak State CollegeSigned partner
Strayer UniversitySigned partner
Columbia Southern UniversitySigned partner
Indiana TechSigned partner
Penn StateWorks with NCCRS
Southern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRS
SUNYWorks with NCCRS
+many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →Find my college → Not listed? Ask Athena in the corner of this page, or book a 15-minute call.
FAQ
Questions students ask us
About Scope Change Management and Project Realignment
What is the difference between scope creep and gold plating?
What are the options for responding to a scope change request?
How does a trade-off keep a scope change within a fixed budget?
What is the difference between scope verification and deliverable approval?
About the Project Management course
How many college credits is Project Management?
How much does Project Management cost and what is included?
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
How long does Project Management take?
How are the exams done?
How do my credits reach my college?
Ready for the full course? Earn 3 credits in Project Management.
73 video lessons, a quiz after each one, and the graded work that earns the credit. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.
3 credits · NCCRSEnroll →