Getting started with scope creep
There is no clever trick in this one, just a handful of decisions worth making deliberately. A short on-ramp to scope creep for teams who have not touched it before.
Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Doing this properly once is usually cheaper than doing it approximately three times.
Why it matters
Small additions compound into missed deadlines. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- A written change process protects both sides
- Change one thing and measure it
Say yes to the change and honest about the cost. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.
The short version
Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about scope creep before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- A written change process protects both sides — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
Most of the value here comes from doing the first two things, not all of them.