Analyzing Scope Creep in a school project

Figure 1: Project Manager with learners performing a traditional Xhosa dance

In my professional experience I’ve had opportunities to be a project manager for several projects, including the one cultural activity at Walter Sisulu Primary school where I worked as a Head of the Department (HoD). This was not a strange task for me as it was something I had done in my previous schools before. The difference with this project was sudden change in the project scope - from an expectation to promote the various cultures and activities within our school to combining this celebration of culture with raising awareness about the HIV/AIDS pandemic within the school and the community at large. According to Wikipedia (2013) the uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in a project’s scope that experienced in this project are referred to as scope creep. What issues led to scope creep in this selected project experience?

The initial schedule for the project was for the project to be launched on national Heritage Day (which is celebrated on September 24 each year in South Africa) with most of the funds raised from parents, business people and the community. In the first month of the school year (January), the steering committee had done project planning and began its fund raising activities. The amount of money in the account unexpectedly reached the target amount within the first two months instead of 6 months as initially planned. The school management team and the steering committee suddenly had splendid ideas on how to improve the project’s output. Lynch & Roecker (2007) mention that “sometimes changes must occur due to a change in vision, a change in the needs of the customer, or even a change in the budget” (p. 96). As the project manager I agreed with the team that this project was a great opportunity for us to market and showcase our new school.  My response to the suggested changes was:  “Sure, no problem”.

Figure 2: Steering Committee members

Lynch & Roecker, (2007) posit that “since scope creep is a major cause of cost and time overrun, the project manager must control changes to the project charter and project scope by following the change management plan created during the planning phase of the project” (p.96). At the time of this project, I had no clue of many of the project management concepts that I have since learnt in the past few weeks in the course entitled “EDUC6145: Project Management in education and training” at Walden University.

As a result of more money being available, the output of the project was changed from a Heritage Day (September 24) celebration to an AIDS awareness campaign concert with cultural activities embedded. The date was also changed to 1^st December, the World Aids Day. The guest list suddenly increased with all community members invited, officials from the department of education and other well-known artists and musical groups such “Mafikizolo” (a local music sensation in the country). Portny et al., (2008) propose the use of change control systems to do things such as evaluating the benefits and disadvantages of the requested changes. The project manager and the steering committee for this project were more interested in the benefits than any other impact on the project.

Figure 3: December, 01 2004 at the end of the project event

Most important is the fact that the project successfully brought smiles to many children’s faces who participated in the various activities and became part of the event. The negative impact on the project was mostly in the lack of balance in delivering the cultural message and educating people on the value of preserving culture within this HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. In the evaluation meeting of the project, the steering committee and the school management team made a decision to subsequently separate these two events into two separate projects, Heritage Day and HIV\AIDS awareness day for future events in order to balance the goals of project management for these two important projects within the school.

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdohMnFHKwY

References

Pretorius, J. (n.d.) Easter Drive Walter Sisulu Primary School. Retrieved 05 December 2013 fromhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdohMnFHKwY
Lynch, M.M., & Roecker, J. (2007). Project Management E-learning: A handbook for successful design, delivery and management. New York, NY: Routledge.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Wikipedia (2011). Scope Creep (Project Management). Retrieved 05 December 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_creep