Scope creep

This article is about project management. For the firearms term, see Telescopic sight § Mounting issues.

Scope creep (also called requirement creep, or kitchen sink syndrome) in project management refers to changes, continuous or uncontrolled growth in a project’s scope, at any point after the project begins. This can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered harmful. It is related to but distinct from feature creep.

Scope creep can be a result of:

• poor change control
• lack of proper initial identification of what is required to bring about the project objectives
• weak project manager or executive sponsor
• poor communication between parties
• lack of initial product versatility

Scope creep is a risk in most projects. Most megaprojects fall victim to scope creep (see Megaprojects and Risk). Scope creep often results in cost overrun. A "value for free" strategy is difficult to counteract and remains a difficult challenge for even the most experienced project managers.

Advantages of scope creep

Scope creep can occasionally have incidentally positive results. For example, the video game The Elder Scrolls: Arena was originally intended to be a "medieval style gladiator game", but due to scope creep, the game quickly expanded into an open-world, epic role-playing game (without the titular arena combat at all), spawning several successful sequels of increasing complexity. Another example is the game Shogun: Total War, which was originally intended to be simply a "B-grade" combat-simulation game, but also expanded scope and resulted in sequels.

See also

• Anti-pattern
• Cost overrun
• Instruction creep
• Mission creep
• The Mythical Man-Month
• Second-system effect
• Software bloat