Scope management and change

- I once heard a PM say that a project manager's biggest fear of a business analyst is scope creep. I get it. The PM is concerned that when he lists any requirements, a BA will agree to stakeholders' requests for some more scope and a PM's schedule and budget are then impacted. As I've grown in my BA career, I've also learned to appreciate that some scope creep is good and needed. Scope creep happens in many ways. And no matter how it happens, it needs to be a collaborative discussion. Some scope creep is not great for projects and some is absolutely needed to ensure that the solution delivers value. Let's dig into this some more. Pat the PM and Bailey the BA are working hard on the CRM project. With so many impacted groups, as they understand more about what's coming, changes in what's needed are evolving and being discussed at a furious pace. Pat and Bailey must find a way to get all of this under control. They work together to define and manage the change process for when they have changes to requirements. This is easier when iterations are short and work in progress is small. Agile teams experience this with their work. However, teams that have a larger work in progress and longer iterations need to manage change carefully. So what do Pat and Bailey need to do to manage scope? Well, they agree on a baseline from which changes will be managed. Then when a potential change comes up, they agree on how they'll do things like identify what the change is; discuss if it's feasible; discuss if it's the right thing to do to get the outcome the project needs; discuss the impact to the quality, scope, budget, and schedule; and bring options and a decision for the leaders to make. Some techniques that help keep all of this organized are things like a change log and a decision log to track changes and decisions. And a change intake checklist to make sure Pat and Bailey have the needed information to further develop the options. And also, a traceability matrix, which helps them see which requirements tie to what outcomes, teams, designs, and tests. Together, Pat and Bailey make change an easy process for the team and stakeholders. Pat and Bailey trust one another with scope and changes. The stakeholders see this, and in turn, trust them to bring the right decisions and options to leaders. Scope changes and scope management should be a positive, not something to fear. With the right mindset and collaboration, the right scope will become more obvious to everyone.