Tales from the Project Management Crypt (A.K.A. Why Does This Keep Going Wrong)

As a proud self admitted project management geek, I have noted a pattern in those snags that projects seem to run into, trip over, crash into and generally plague project success. This series of articles for Canadian Management Centre will explore the common pitfalls and share some strategies on how to crawl out of the pit or better yet, develop and early warning system to avoid the pitfalls.

Get any project managers together and the major topic of conversations will be scope creep. Scope creep is that awful experience of finding out that there is more to the project that originally anticipated. This usually occurs after the budget, time and specifications have been set. Imagine the experience of buying a fixer upper and determining that a fixed amount of money will have the place ready to move into by January 1st. Opps, it would appear that the basement leaks, the roof leaks, there is something black oozing from the basement, and your house is located on a historical site of some significance. That is scope creep.

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