Scope Creep

Every tenth grader in the state of Ohio must take the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT).  Passing this test is one of the requirements of graduation.  The test covers mathematics, english, reading, science, and social studies.  I was assigned the task of creating a review program for students who had failed to pass the mathematics portion of the test and were planning on re-taking it during the summer.  The course would last for 2 weeks and the students would attend for 2 hours a day.  

I was able to use any resources within the school building, but not able to order anything additional.  I was the only individual creating and teaching the program as was paid a set amount for the 2 week course.  As such, I did not need to keep track of a budget. 

I knew ahead of time that planning for the course would take a significant amount of time.  I started by reviewing the way other teachers had run the review program in the past.  What did they do that worked?  How did the students perform?  What materials did they use? How did they break up the time?  These, and many more, were questions that I examined during the analysis phase of the project.  

Looking back, there are many things I would do differently as I planned this review course.  I never stopped to look at the big picture before delving in and planning daily lessons.  There were several mistakes I made that, in the end, created much more work (i.e. scope creep) that initially anticipated:

1. The objective for the course was to quickly review important material, test-taking strategies, and leave plenty of time for practice in order to give students the best chance for success.  This objective, however, was vague and never clearly stated to the participants.  Portny warns that vague objectives can be a major pitfall (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Schafer, Sutton, Kramer, 2008). 
2. Not fully understanding the potential risks have to increase scope creep in a negative way, I used the ‘ostrich approach’ to managing risk (Portny et al., 2008).  In other words, I buried my head and pretended that potential such as disciplinary or attendance problems would not occur. 
3. Although I did look at what past facilitators did as far as creating their lesson plans, I did not fully investigate the risks that came to fruition in past years.  This would have better prepared me for the learning environment and what I could have done to combat the attitudes of the students. 

When I created the review course, I had never heard about scope creep, or risks, or many other terms that are commonplace in the PM world.  In essence, I only thought of the day to day tasks that I needed to complete to have the appropriate amount of material for the students.  I underestimated that value of clear objectives, of risk management, or time allocation.  The result was that I ended up scraping all of the work I did multiple times and ended up spending at least three times as much work on creating the course than needed.  

Resource

Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer (2008).  Project management: planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.