Analysis of Scope Creep in Project Management: PRST241 Assignment

This discussion post delves into the concept of project scope creep within the context of project management, using an affordable housing project as a case study. The author describes instances where the project's scope expanded beyond its initial vision due to legal issues, economic setbacks, and changing client demands, leading to budget overruns and delays. The post highlights the importance of resource management and the allocation of contingency funds to address unforeseen circumstances. It suggests strategies such as assigning additional resources and incentivizing labor to mitigate scope creep. The author also analyzes another project involving shipment, where inventory management faced scope creep due to last-minute shipment increases. The post emphasizes implementing resource management plans to avoid these risks and acknowledges that while avoiding scope creep is crucial, it can be challenging due to various external factors. This assignment, available on Desklib, provides valuable insights into project management challenges and solutions.

Running head: BUSINESS PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Business Project Management
Name of the student:
Name of the University:

1BUSINESS PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Initial Prompt
This prompt discusses the concept of project scope creep in the context of project
management. In this post the concept of project scope creep is demonstrated based on the work
project in which I was involved: affordable housing project. Whenever a project stretches beyond
its actual vision and missions it is called project scope creep. In most case project’s objectives or
outcomes fails to meet expectation due to project scope creep.
Example: When I was involved to an affordable housing development project due to
certain legal issues and economic drawback we had to stop the project progress for 2 days.
During the implementation of any project the project managers may face different challenges. I
think that these challenges are required to be resolved or reduced to avoid project failure. Scope
creep is referred to as one of the most frequently occurring project level challenges that is needed
to be eliminated from all projects.
However after 2 days the project team received a completely modified project scope. Not
only this but also during the project development period the owners demand keep on changing
and based on that we had to change the project scope as well. It caused overrunning budget and
over allocation of time as well. We have planned to complete the project within the budget and
time of respectively $90,000 and 16 months but due to these reasons a delay occurred. In order to
avoid the delay we added more resources to our project activities, which caused budget
increment. Due to this scope creep the project was though implemented but not satisfactory from
the project management perspectives.

2BUSINESS PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Response prompt
As mentioned in the first post it has been determined, that scope creep has occurred
because of late demand from the clients regarding flooring. I think that, in order to avoid this
challenge that you should assign additional cost and resources both for emergency cases so that
within assigned time the task get completed successfully without any kind of internal chaos. If
additional resources are initially secured then with little efforts the flooring work would have
been completed successfully. Apart from that, I think that you should also conduct reward to the
current labours then for extra income they would have served to complete the flooring work
sooner before or on time.
However, for the second post also scope creep has been determined. Though, it is also
required to be mitigated. On the other hand I have also identified that, for the shipment project
your inventory management company faced scope creep challenge because the company
received a shipment of around 1500 units at the very last moment. Resource management is the
best way to avoid this issue. You need to implement appropriate resource management plan to
avoid this risk. As it was not confirmed that the shipment will be turned off therefore you should
consider additional budget for resources to make the count sooner.
Sometimes avoidance of scope creep is identified as little difficult because, availing
additional cost and resources are not easy at all. It is also identified that resource management is
the best way to avoid scope creep but due to lack of social, political, environmental, legal,
technical, economical errors the company may not be able to meet the project objectives or
primary goals and aims.

3BUSINESS PROJECT MANAGEMENT