Note: This posting is a continuation to the topic posted on June 24th and relates to my project management workshop titled "10 Ways to Increase Your Project's Success". In this post I discuss one of the sources of project failure and how we may mitigate this risk to our projects.

Source 3 - Expectations Management
I believe this is the most common source of project failures. Expectations management is the effort where the project team tries to ensure their perceptions of the scope and scale of the project deliverables align with the project owners. In addition to understanding the initial scope this also entails tracking changes to the scope. Expectations management becomes challenging when the requirements are not know, ambiguous, or fluid. We must acknowledge the the scope of any project changes over time through either significant changes or minor changes. The minor changes over time (scope creep) can be difficult to manage and product tweaks implemented by the project team (feature creep) can be both difficult to detect and manage.

Effect on Project
Since the schedule and budget are directly related to the project's scope, any change to the scope most likely has an effect on the schedule and budget. Minor changes in project scope may be absorbed with the existing budget and schedule but as these changes add up (scope creep) the budget and schedule need to be adjusted. Failure to adjust the budget and schedule to accommodate changes to the project scope put the project at risk for being over budget and behind schedule.

Actions Taken by the Project Manager

The most important action a project manager can take is to be aware and track the defined project scope and any changes to the scope. Quite often project teams will use a change order process to formally recognize changes to the project scope in order to calculate the additional time and budget needed to include the change. The changes are then introduced as a proposal and presented to the project owner for review and approval. Using the change order process, changes to the project scope are not actionable until the change order is approved and the new budget and schedule are adopted. A part of making the change order process work is to educate the project owner about the association of scope with schedule and budget and also explain that the change order ensures the project will be more likely to stay on track for the planned budget and schedule. We should expect change and be happy to welcome these requested changes to our project but we must insist that we are able to reevaluate the project budget and schedule so that we may ensure the project can remain successful.

Next Source: Process Shortcuts