“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and
have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically, to say ‘no’ to
other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning
inside. The enemy of the ‘best’ is often the ‘good.’” – Stephen Covey.
The Project
I worked at a school that conducted Allied Health Courses
using the tradition face-to-face method. The school decided to convert the
face-to-face Home Health Aide (HHA) class to the online format. Since HHA had
only 20 contact hours, the administration assumed it would be easier to convert
it to an online class. The management selected the Administrator to be the PM.
The administrator identified and selected a project team that included the SME
and the technical Designers. The SME was to provide the material and the
technical design team would re-purpose the material to address the issues
relevant to the online medium. The project was scheduled to be completed in two
months.
The Scope Creep
Greer (2010) identified scope creep as those seemingly
reasonable requests for “little add-ons” or enhancements by stakeholders, which
eventually get the project budget and schedule to be blown out, and eventually
making the whole project team to be blamed. In the instant case, the scope started
changing when the SME had to leave the project due to personal issues. The new
SME came with all new ideas and concerns. She wanted to introduce video
sections that had not originally been included in the initial plan or budget.
She also wanted to include other aspects of the curricular such as CPR that was
not part of the original scope. Having come from an organization that had a
functioning HHA online, she wanted to make our online HHA class to take the
same format and design of her previous engagement.
Project Creep Management
The stakeholders did not address this scope creep very well.
Instead of reviewing the effects and the impact this scope changes would have on
the project, the Project Manager let the SME have a free hand in the new process. Consequently, the budget
almost doubled, and the timeline exceeded the initial plan. Several project
members who had time pressure could not be available in the new expanded
project, the finance office did not have the money to pay for some of the new
activities, and the project team all but collapsed. The project was an utter
failure. We did not succeed and we abandoned the project without the team
producing anything tangible despite the costs and time spent.
This project had many flaws.
There was no written plan or
even a project charter. The lack of the project charter left the project open
to different interpretation of scope by different stakeholders. The Project Manager was also very weak. Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, and
Kramer, (2008) avers that a successful Project Manager require targeted skills
and techniques to steer the project to successful completion. Our Project Manager
Influence and control over the overall project was weak. He adopted a laissez
faire approach to project management. To ensure successful completion I would
recommend greater scope control and a clear communication of the project
milestones and deliverables. Dr. Harold Stolovich (n.d) recommends that the
Project Manager should let any person introducing a change of scope know that
though you value their idea, the change cannot be accommodated right away. He
also recommends a use of a change of scope document. This would have made the
organization achieve success in the project.
The other key issue I would address would be the key
assumptions project members had for the project. The tacit assumptions were
that the entire team would be available for the life of the project. There was
also an assumption that the project had an unlimited budget and the aim was to
develop the best online HHA course. These assumptions were not grounded on
facts and became a major handicap during the implementation.
I would have revised and clarified the project purpose, developed a project charter and have it approved by the management and have any change no matter how innocuous be accompanied by the change of scope document that would outline the impact of the change on the schedule and budget of the project.
References
Greer, M. (2010). The Project Management
Minimalist:Just Enough PM to Rock Your Projects! Baltimore, MD: Laureate
Education Ed.
Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S.,
Sutton, M., & Kramer, B. (2008). Project Management - Planning
Scheduling and Controlling Projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons,
Inc.
Stolovich, H. (Writer), & Laureate Educational
Inc, (Director). (n.d.). Project Management Concerns: Scope Creep
[Motion Picture].
