Scope Creep
“Can you please add a new order management screen for international orders…?” or “Can you please write up the quarterly close process since you are already doing the monthly process?” There are a million ways a client will ask you to do a bit more than what you signed up for. Sometimes these are just different interpretations of the original requirement and sometimes they are completely new requests. One way or another, they grow your scope and they will impact your timelines. It can be very hard to catch this early on, especially in the early phases with new clients. Scope creep is one of the major reasons a project will go over time and over budget. Catching scope creep is an easier task when major items are being added or changed in flight, but it is the small ones that sneak under the radar that you need to watch out for. Doing small changes every now and then can add up to a lot of extra time and effort spent in the long run.
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