How to Answer: How do you prevent and manage scope creep when managing a project?
Advice and answer examples written specifically for an Avanade job interview.
22. How do you prevent and manage scope creep when managing a project?
How to Answer
The candidate's ability to clearly articulate how they prevent and manage scope creep in a project is extremely important. In project management, a common issue is the project's scope changing or continuously growing after the project is initiated, and it can cause a project to miss deadlines or fail to meet key deliverables. Ways to prevent or mitigate scope creep may include: fully educating oneself on a project's goals and objectives, maintaining proper and regular communication with the project team, understanding project requirements, using formal project tracking mechanisms, developing a formal system for changing project scope, and being attentive when managing the project team. The candidate can successfully answer this question by providing details on how they use a specific strategy to manage or prevent scope creep, with a strong answer including a specific example from a project they are currently managing or have managed in the past.
Written by Kelly Burlison on February 6th, 2019
1st Answer Example
"Early in my project management career, I often dealt with scope creep in my projects, which caused the projects to lose focus and sometimes resulted in missed deadlines and deliverables that did not align with the goals and objectives of the project. After this happened a couple of times, I learned that it was important to put controls in place to prevent and manage scope creep, so now, as soon as I am assigned a project from my PMO, I review the goals and objectives to ensure I am very clear on how the scope should be defined. Then, during the project, I am diligent in managing the project and team by using formal tracking mechanisms, maintaining ongoing communication, and using a formal change management process if a member of the project team wants to change the scope of the project. Since using these techniques, I have found it much easier to prevent scope creep, and if scope creep starts to happen, I am able to manage it before it gets out of control and starts affecting the timeline and deliverables of the project."
Written by Kelly Burlison on February 6th, 2019
2nd Answer Example
"As a project manager, I have often dealt with scope creep. For example, I was recently assigned a project form my PMO to create a digital scorecard that includes performance and sales metrics for each department at my company. However, approximately a month into the project, I noticed scope creep starting to occur in our weekly project planning meetings and in project communications, as the developers assigned to the project were interested in using their skills to build a full dashboard that exceeded the scope and objectives of the project. When I recognized that scope creep was taking place, I began managing the project more vigilantly and reminding the project team of the scope, their actual assigned tasks, and their timeline of deliverables on the work plan. Since my company's Chief Information Officer was on the project team, and she was insistent on expanding the scope of the project, I instituted a formal change management process, where requests for scope changes could be proposed to project leadership. Using this formal process, the CIO was able to get her changes approved and formally built into the project scope. This change management process was much more efficient, as the actual scope and deliverables of the project have now changed, rather than the scope creeping from the original objectives."