{"id":127,"date":"2011-07-10T09:53:05","date_gmt":"2011-07-10T09:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.finditez.com\/blog\/?p=105"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:17:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:17:35","slug":"on-time-on-budget-as-specified-success-tip-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/on-time-on-budget-as-specified-success-tip-4\/","title":{"rendered":"On Time On Budget &#8211; Productivity Software Tip 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong># 4 &#8211; Scope creep.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t let it happen!<\/strong>\u00a0 This is another critical success factor that is well within your control.\u00a0 You absolutely have the power to manage scope creep.\u00a0 Before jumping right into design and development, ensure you understand the requirements.\u00a0 Talk to stake holders and end users.\u00a0 <strong>Document and insist on official sign-off of expected deliverables up front<\/strong>.\u00a0 During the iterative prototyping process,<strong> resist the temptation to add bells and whistles that were not asked for.<\/strong> Instead, I recommend, noting and adding them to a future enhancements list that you can discuss with the client upon successful delivery of the changes within scope.\u00a0 Not only does it make you look good for meeting delivery time-lines, but you may just increase your opportunity to extend your engagement by showing this initiative.\u00a0 Win-win.<\/p>\n<p>The same goes for project managers.\u00a0 You need to keep close tabs on development in progress through regular status meetings with your team.\u00a0 Ensure the primary focus on in-scope deliverables is strictly adhered to.\u00a0 Again, document possible future enhancements, but resist the temptation to throw them in as a bonus.\u00a0 Remember, they will also add complexity and additional end-user testing elapsed time that was not accounted for in the original project estimates.\u00a0 <strong>Don&#8217;t deviate from the in-scope deliverable estimates<\/strong>, you can&#8217;t hit a moving target!<\/p>\n<p>From my experience, use of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Comparison_of_issue-tracking_systems\">an automated change management\/bug tracking tool<\/a> can be priceless.\u00a0 This will allow you and your team to quickly document proposed value added enhancements recognized during the detailed design or development process, and just as quickly get back to working on the next priority in-scope task.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p># 4 &#8211; Scope creep.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t let it happen!\u00a0 This is another critical success factor that is well within your control.\u00a0 You absolutely have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software-estimating"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/banner.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}