Week 6 Blog Assignment - Analyzing Scope Creep

“Project managers must expect change and be prepared to deal with it” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, 2008, p. 346).

Personal Experience

Just this past weekend, I experienced scope creep. I was contracted to be the photographer of the day for a church members wedding. The fee had been set, as well as the number of shots that the fee included. During our initial meeting the couple was determined to start their wedding on time. Therefore, we agreed in writing, that the photo session would begin on time and any of the wedding party that missed their particular shots would be just that, “missing”. Since I have done several weddings before I pretty much knew the allotted time I would need to get the before wedding pictures that the couple and I had agreed upon. The wedding was to begin at 4:00 and I had made it perfectly clear that the photo sessions would begin at 1:30. It would take me close to an hour and a half to get all of the before shots. The first instance of scope creep crept in around 1:15p.m. The person in charge of letting us into the church called to say that he was stuck in traffic 30 minutes away. So, I was already doomed. Not only that, after he did arrive with the key at close to 2:00, the bride tells me that she is still waiting on three of her bridesmaids, one of which was her best, best friend. I reminded her of our agreement, but she was very reluctant to accept the fact that her best friend would not be in the main pictures. Knowing that this idea was not feasible, I revised my photo line up to include the pictures she would be needed in at the end of the photo session. Although this area of scope creep cost me some time in my planned schedule, it was manageable by simply revising the plan.

Around 3:00, I had taken all of the pictures I needed to take of the wedding party and the groom. During the wedding rehearsal the night before, it was verbally agreed upon that after all photos involving the groom were taken, we would send him in hiding and bring her out for her photo session with and without the wedding party. The decision to do this was based on not having to take an abundance of pictures after the ceremony. So, I go the bridal room prepared to take photos of the bride preparing for her special day. Wouldn’t you know that when I got into the bridal room, the bride decides to tell me that she had changed her mind because now, she didn’t want anyone to see her before she walked down the aisle. This was a major form of scope creep because now this meant that extra time would be needed for more pictures after the wedding, which would delay the time I had allocated out of my day to photograph the wedding and the reception. I was stuck. The contract we had negotiated and signed off on was missing a lot of information that would have helped me avoid these areas of scope creep. I was officially, “the photographer of the DAY”, literally.

Better Managing the Issues

Looking back on this day, there are many things that could have been done to better manage scope creep on this wedding day. For one, I should have planned to meet the man with the key to the building earlier than the time I expected the wedding party to arrive for pictures. This would have allowed some time for a little tardiness in getting into the building. Secondly, the contract should have included a planned scope that outlined a specific amount of time the fee included for me to be the “photographer of the day”, before additional fees would be added. Just during casual conversation, we made a ballpark estimate that my time as, “photographer of the day”, would start around 1:00 with prepare for and shooting the formal pictures, and end around 8:30, after the important reception memories had been captured. Also, the contract agreed upon for this day should have been more detailed and outlined before we agreed on it. I should have got in writing the bride’s plans for her photo session. It should have outlined how time would be managed depending on when she had her photo session and how this would affect the timeline of my schedule as the “photographer of the day”.

All in all, although these areas of scope creep were very frustrating, in the end, all was handled and I’ll chalk it up as a learning experience. I’m in the process of revising my wedding photographer contract to include ways to possibly manage the mentioned areas of scope creep. I’m sure other forms will rear its head further down the road, but I’ll somehow manage to manage it.

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.

Week 5 - Estimating Costs and Allocating Resources

As I get further into this course of Project Management in Education and Training, the task currently presented is planning a project schedule and resource allocation plan. Below I describe two resources I found that may be readily used during the completion of these two tasks. I found both sites to be very informative and offered some very valuable pointers.

This article titled “Estimating and Project management for developing learning materials” was found at http://www.design4instruction.com/estimating/index.html. This site lists very valuable points that will help me estimate costs for my project. The article lists some important principles to keep in mind when estimating the design and development of learning materials. One principle that stood out is “an estimate is just that … an estimate”. It reminded me that when estimating cost s for a project, be sure to add a contingency amount before revealing my cost estimates. Another principle that struck my attention was “the best predictor of the future is the past”. Keep records of all projects, so that the costs and time it took to complete them may serve as a measure for the costs and time to complete the same or similar projects. A third principle was “administration time is not a waste of time”. A project manager is the only thing standing between a project and failure. A project manager makes sure the tasks are done, the products are completed, and keeps rework to a minimum. A percentage of the budget has to be allocated for the project manager.

This article also noted methods for estimating the development of learning materials. The methods included seeking an expert to help estimate the project costs, prototype the product, research budget data for similar projects, and use a methodology to roll up the estimate.

This article titled “Understanding Project Cost Management, is written by Jessie L. Warner. It was found at http://goarticles.com/article/Understanding-Project-Cost-Management/3752356.

References in this article were made to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). It lists estimate costs, determine budget, and control costs as three processes for effective cost management. I found some very helpful information relating to each of the three processes. Techniques for getting a good guess at the costs were listed. Analogous estimating (estimating based on past projects), parametric modeling (estimating based on mathematical formulas), and bottom-up estimating (estimating based on individual work item cost and duration costs) were the techniques listed for making good cost guesses. The article also listed several techniques for determining the project budget, as suggested in the PMBOK. The suggested techniques were to use cost aggregation (combining costs from an activity level to a work package level), reserve analysis (creating a reserve to protect against cost overruns), historical data (consider estimates from previous projects), and funding limit reconciliation (adhering to imposed constraints of the funding limit). Finally, the article listed the PMBOK’s suggested tools and techniques for effectively controlling project costs. The suggested tools and techniques were earned value management (using formulas to measure progress against the plan), forecasting (project future costs by comparing to the current financial situation), variance analysis (analyzing the difference between budgeted costs and the actual costs), and performance reviews (analyzing project costs, schedule, scope, quality, and team morale).