Managing Creeping Scope Determining and managing the scope of a project is one o

Question

Managing Creeping Scope

Determining and managing the scope of a project is one of the most important tasks in project management. As a project manager, it is important to understand when the scope of a project is changed due to additions or deletions to the planned work, delays, shortages in staff and budgets, or because of customer changes. Additionally, you will be able to monitor and control the project scope and schedule and deal with ethical issues that might arise concerning time management. It is the project manager’s responsibility to ensure that the requirements of a project are met sufficiently. While projects are handled differently in different industries, managing scope creep is essential in all industries. For example, the healthcare and nuclear industries may have projects that can never have change to the scope due to the sensitivity of the project. In other industries such as construction or machining, the project may have an acceptable tolerance range that allows for some minor changes in the scope of the project. Benefits of proper scope management include project team confidence in work expectations, time and cost management, and improved management confidence in the PM and the project team. Because each project is different, it is essential for PMs to identify tools and techniques that they can use when they encounter issues on projects.

QUESTION:

1. As a project manager, how will you ensure that the work completed by your team will meet the project scope requirements?

2. Share a potential ethical dilemma that might arise while managing a project. How will you ensure that you and the team respond to the dilemma ethically and that all team members have the same idea of “what is ethical” behavior in the given situation?

3. What approach will you use when asked to change the scope of a project by upper management, customers, and other stakeholders? Will your approach be the same for all or differ by group? Justify

Explanation / Answer

1. As a project manager, I will ensure that the work gets completed by my team as per the scope requirement of the project by allocating work activities as per the capabilities of the team members, by allocating resources appropriately, and planning the project with proper guidelines. I will make sure that team members have responsibility for what they are performing and are accountable for their task outcome. I will set policies as per the project standard and supervise every work activities and monitor teams behaviour. I will also have a strict control over the project undertaken and make corrective action whenever required.

2. Ethical dilemmas can arise in any project, for example, while process the project activities, some resources are wasted by the team, and they are in fear that they will be held accountable for it and asked for compensation, they are in an ethical dilemma whether to report it to the manager or to hide it by not reporting and continue the work. In this situation I will ensure that team members are free to communicate with me without any hesitation and are allowed to share there problem. With this approach I can expect that team members will reach out me take liability of what they have done and resolve the issue. Ethical standards are cherished by everyone if they are treated well and provided with a flexible work environment and free flow of communication.

3. It is not easy to bring changes in any project scope. It comes with time and cost constraints. And everybody has a different perspective and need over a project. It is good to approach the change by different groups than applying same approach. Then I will collect the information regarding what change each group has and plan the changes to be made to the ongoing project. I will determine where to start again, what additional costs it required, and how much more time will it take to get completed by incrementing the changes.

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