Scope Creep and Gold Plating are two sides of the same coin
| Posted in Project Management, Why Projects Fail | Posted on 24-03-2010 | 870 views
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While Scope Creep and Gold Plating may appear as two different issues in project management, they are relevant and very likely to result in unsatisfied customers, the creep term is so true, you start a small change and accept it without enough analysis then you find yourself doing another change in order to implement the first one, and creep keeps going and going!
Scope creep results from adding new requirements to the scope that are not aligned with the project charter or casually accepting requested changes without conducting a thorough analysis to assess the impact of accepting the change on cost, time, quality, risk, stakeholders, and customer satisfaction. uncontrolled changes usually result in uncontrolled project that can get off track easily, a change management process has to be in place prior to starting the project, the process has to be communicated to management and endorsed by the project sponsor, stakeholders have to understand that their new demands may be rejected and if accepted it will have to go through a process
As and when a project manger receives a new change that was not initially in scope, a change request form has to be filled and submitted by the demand initiator, the project manager should not commit to anything until the form is received and assessed with the team to estimate the cost/effort and duration and to assess the impacts on risk, customer satisfaction, and quality, the change has to be consistent with the business problem as well, then the project manager has to update the form with the impacts and submit the change to the CCB (Change Control Board) to seek approval, or to discuss the change with the project steering committee to either accept or reject the change, ideally the project manager has to give his recommendation along with the updated change form, however the final decision has to be made by the CCB only, it is likely to find conflicting needs between the change requester and another stakeholder, the project manager has to help resolving this kind of conflicts with the support of the project sponsor.
No matter how small the project is, no matter how small the change is, the process has to exist and stakeholders have to understand that there no ad-hoc changes will be accepted, Scope Creep is one of the main causes of project failure, as per The Project Management Benchmark Report 2010 released by Arras People, scope creep represents 11.8% of project failure reasons, the change management process requires a project manager whose strong personality to control stakeholders’ expectations and behaviours, a doormat project manger will always be submissive and this may lead to scope creep!
Gold Plating
I have strong belief that quality is conformance to requirements, give them what they want, no more no less, if you are capable of controlling scope, you are building an important cornerstone for the project success, I’d love to hear about your experience with scope creep and gold plating, have you ever gold plated? have your project gone out of control because of staggering number of changes that were requested?
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I never gold plated a project but I think we need to keep our customers happy so if that plating will not effect the final product so why we don’t do it and keep our customer loyal.
Today, we as persons before project manager need to be a linchpins as Seth Godin said, we should offer new things and go beyond what has been requested.
Thanks,
The problem with both scope creep and gold plating is that things get out of control, if you would like to make your customers happy I think nothing can make them any happier if you deliver what you promised in the first place…
Also, If you want to gold plate, you can simply communicate the change you will be adding to indulge your customers, get approval, and then tell them that you will do it for free..
I don’t know the context of Seth Godin’s recommendation, but I will respond to you by a quote of Tom Peters (that I believe in to some extent) : “formula for success: under promise and over deliver”
Thanks!
Good post! Of course, you always want a happy client. I find that it can actually be somewhat enjoyable to control scope and push back on true feature/functionality enhancements, especially when the response is that we can submit a change request but it will cost $ and add time to the project. There is no quicker way to keep the focus on the project than by telling the customer that!
Sometimes though I have found that the gold plating can be encouraged by internal stakeholders, who have a stake in the relationship and overall $$ associated with the client, without regard to how it can negatively impact the project. That can be more difficult to manage.
Dana, you’ve raised a great point that is very common on vendor’s side, most of times, the sales people will only have a single focus that is finishing the project, get the money, and walk away..
They also push changes from inside, a sales person may ask the project manager to gold plate to make the customer happier, and increasing likelihood of winning future deals from the same customer..
The project manager has to raise a red flag and explain risks associated with this kind of changes..
Thanks Dana
Hi Kareem – good post, and both can be damaging to projects. that’s nothing new. but i think that these days, some companies are so happy to have clients that they’ll do whatever it takes to keep them happy. they forget that what suits in the short-term – namely these two problems – doesn’t usually work out long-term.
Kareem,
I agree. Sometimes what a customer thinks they want (the gold plating) isn’t really what they want at all. We all want to make out customers happy, but I don’t think that implies that we should allow scope creep to create unwieldy projects and difficult-to-finish projects—that doesn’t make anyone happy. Especially out customers.
Hello Kareem:
I am taking a PM course, and was requested (a few weks ago) to post the pros & cons of “gold plating.” I ran into your post today and have cut-n-pasted my exact post below. Note the YouTube link contains my work in safety. Take care! Paul
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Posted by Paul Sheridan Wed Apr 7 13:44:59 2010.
Reply: Before we can discuss these questions with any degree of competence or integrity we need to review the blatant duplicity and confusion that already exists in the literature regarding this “gold plating” vernacular.
Slide 6 says:
“Gold Plating: Gold plating refers to giving the customer extras. For example giving extra functionality, higher-quality components, and extra scope or better performance.”
So here the literature describes a situation (better performance”) where the customer IS receiving value that will be of benefit and will be realized/used. But then that slide references a link (www.snyders.us/contractor-consultant.htm that says:
“The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) describes gold-platting as ‘giving the customer extras (extra functionality, higher-quality components, extra scope of work or better performance).’ The PMBOK position is that ‘gold-plating adds no value to the project.’ “
Note the second sentence blatantly contradicts the first.
The Sharyn Brotz paper entitled, “The Positive Side of Gold Plating- Introducing the Concept of Scope Interpretation Bandwidth” says (edited):
“ ‘Gold plating: PMI does not recommend giving the customer extras (e.g. extra functionality, higher-quality components, extra scope of work or better performance). Gold-plating adds no value to the project. Often such additions are included based on the project team’s impression of what the customer would like. This impression may not be accurate. Considering that only 26% of all projects succeed, project managers would be better off spending their time conforming to requirements (PMP Exam Prep Guide, 2nd Edition, Beaver’s Pond Press, 2000). ’
There are so many objectionable and arguable phrases within this paragraph . . . What makes REQUIREMENTS indicators of project success? Who wrote the requirements? . . . requirements typically portray a functional need, addressing WHAT is desired and not HOW these needs will be provided.”
So, if it is clear that the so-called PM experts cannot agree on what the vernacular “gold plating” refers to, how are we to answer the DQ questions?
Obviously the current definitional status (i.e. Tower of Babble confusion) forces an answer of ‘It depends,’ and in response to BOTH DQ questions. With that answer, let me offer an example where so-called “gold plating” is not merely “a good management practice,” but an ethical requirement that has been upheld repeatedly as-such in the courts.
When someone buys an automobile, the essential scope statement constrains the manufacturer to many “customer requirements” including “Compliance with all applicable government regulations” (That is an industry quote.). However, if we adhere to the PMI recommendation of not giving the auto customer “extra scope,” will we have fulfilled our duty to “a good management practice, and/or can we hide behind the PMI notion that we were justified to renege based on an anticipation of an inaccurate “impression of what the customer would like”? Not a chance.
The US government, to this day, still does not require installation of a simple, inexpensive device called brake-transmission shift interlock (BTSI). Therefore, BTSI is not implicit in any auto manufacturer’s product scope statement. As such, under the PMI definition, BTSI is an “extra.” Try telling that to Mr. Todd Golden, or Ms. Amy Dawson, or Ms. Donna Saderfield :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=corrR7Wx8Bo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oppQrqf54-E&feature=related
Outside the US, BTSI is almost universally a government requirement so the issue of “gold plating” cannot apply to BTSI or its management. But the question arises:
Are project managers constrained by customer requirements that the customer may or may not have the expertise to request/demand? And if the answer is yes, does this denigrate the “extra” to that of “gold plating”?
In this context, product safety, the answer to the first DQ question is clear: We maintain the well-being of our customers and users of our products; an obvious advantage. If the context is a few extra lines of software code, that may or may not delay the project or may not provide “extra performance,” then there are distinct disadvantages and it may amount to poor management practice.
Quite frankly the term “gold plating” is offensive (at any level), meant to be biased/biasing, amounts to street talk, and as-such has no place in diligent/conscientious discussions about or within project management. Certainly we can derive a more suitable term for the broad contexts and issues involved. .
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ADDED SUBTHREADS
Posted by Senay Tascioglu Fri Apr 16 21:39:57 2010
Thread: Paul, I like how you think critically.
BTSI is a good example.
You supported your side very well (question 2). The only part was not covered well was the “disadvantages”, part of question 1.
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