"Scope creep: Adding additional features or functions of a new product, requirements, or work that is not authorized (i.e., beyond the agreed-upon scope)." - Larson, R. & Larson, E. (2009).If you view my January 20th blog post, with my timeline of goals, you would see that I expected to be finishing the curriculum for the third tier of my personal development program right about now. That goal was abruptly derailed when my supervisor indicated that I was to focus on getting funding for the final development of this project before I complete the authoring of the support materials.
This week I had to regroup and figure out where to go next. That answer led to tiptoeing around a pending scope creep.
As the Curriculum and Instructional Design Manager, the coursework, competency frameworks, and curriculum resources accessed by our students are all my responsibility. In conversations with my supervisor around budgets and curriculum for the upcoming school year, we toyed with the idea of getting at least the PAIRIN curriculum in front of current students as a beta test of the third party tools and lessons. However, because my project was never designed to be used in a GPS ed center, it was decided that I should tread carefully around this scope creep by “offering” the only the curriculum from PAIRIN (not all of the supporting lessons, activities and additional assessments) as a potential new resource for teachers.
My tiptoeing caused confusion with our program staff. Normally, I introduce new curriculum and coursework as a directive - “Here are the changes in curriculum delivery for the upcoming school year.” I had to spend some time explaining that my project was a set of activities and assessments that make use of a third party curriculum - it was not just researching which pre-packaged curriculum we should adopt. In addition, I had to provide a 30-second synopsis of my learner analysis so they could understand that my external product is inappropriate for internal use. (Check out my January 27th blog post for a refresher on that analysis.)
After reviewing the lessons and tools we would purchase from PAIRIN, the enthusiasm that I have received from all parties thus far was shared by our program administrators. In other words, my suggestion of a new resource led to a definitive scope creep. My project has just taken on a new audience with entirely different delivery and time management issues.
Stay tuned, next week I’ll lead out with a new project plan. As an instructional designer, my job isn’t just providing educational materials for students, it is also to educate my internal customers on setting clear goals and boundaries for a specific audience.
Resources:
Larson, R. & Larson, E. (2009). Top five causes of scope creep ... and what to do about them. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—North America, Orlando, FL. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
After reviewing the lessons and tools we would purchase from PAIRIN, the enthusiasm that I have received from all parties thus far was shared by our program administrators. In other words, my suggestion of a new resource led to a definitive scope creep. My project has just taken on a new audience with entirely different delivery and time management issues.
Stay tuned, next week I’ll lead out with a new project plan. As an instructional designer, my job isn’t just providing educational materials for students, it is also to educate my internal customers on setting clear goals and boundaries for a specific audience.
Resources:
Larson, R. & Larson, E. (2009). Top five causes of scope creep ... and what to do about them. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—North America, Orlando, FL. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
