Scope Creep

Scope Creep

Scope Creep, words that make you cringe. Scope Creep can happen to even the most seasoned Project Manager, it can happen at any time and on even the most well planned project. Scope creep happened on a recent project in my office.

The project converting from our old Learning Management System (LMS) to a new Learning Management System. Project manager has created a project plan, time line and done all the research. Project is moving along, when suddenly the Director of the training department says that the LMS needs to produce a custom transcript that lists Continuing Professional Education credits along with Continuing Education Units. The project manager now has to review the project, add this in, speak with the hosting company, revisit the time line, and add this, as it was never part of the original project. We get moving again, and now the Chief Executive Officer realizes the LMS needs to do something else that is outside the original project scope. These two projects set our project back from a few weeks to several weeks what was to happen the first of the year didn't happen until late February, and still took many more months of releases and bug fixes, but the new LMS is released and being used on a daily basis.

Project Management Allocating Resources and Cost Estimation

                

Project Management Allocating Resources and Cost Estimation 

                 The first site I looked at is Ganttic, with this site you get a 14 day free trial. This site allows you to drag and drop, you can assign colors to tasks and projects, you are able to add reports, import reports and filter items. This site is easy to use and provides some useful information, It provides the information in a neat and organized manner, you can leave notes for the project team members. 

                  The next site I looked at was Asana, I have used this site in my current job. I like the ability to add team members to the project, provide deadlines, and provide status updates. Asana is easy to use, and you can set your own updates, link it to your email and it has an app that you can download and use it while on the go. 

Resources

“Resource Management Multi-Project Planning.” Ganttic. Web. 6 Feb. 2016. http://www.ganttic.com/

“Move Work Forward.” Asana. Web. 6 Feb. 2016. https://asana.com/

Communicating Effectively

Post-mortem

   Summer Vacation  Project FAIL....

      Picture it, a tropical vacation, a cruise ship, two single mom's with their teenage sons, setting out for the "BEST" summer vacation ever. A few years ago one of my best friends and I decided that we were going to go on a summer vacation. We sat down and came up with our project plan, hard to believe you would need a project plan for a vacation, but you don't know me. I have never been able to actually take a vacation, money is always my issue. So here we were, we decided we were going to take a family vacation for the summer.

    We sat down one winter night and tossed around what type of vacation, so we priced Disney, Disney cruises, an all inclusive trip to Mexico, a trip to the Virgin Islands, or a cruise. We proposed the ideas to our team (families) the vote was for a cruise. Now we had to come up with a budget. Our budget was $1600 per family (family size is 2 and there are 2 families). We divided the work up, we had a project manager, drivers, supporters and even an observer or two that were outside the project team. 

      Most of us took our job seriously, we did our research on airfare, hotel costs, planned excursions, chose destinations, researched cruise lines, we wanted to get the absolute best deal for our money. Various factors would come up along the way, but we had our budget, plan and we were determined to make this work. However, we quickly found out that if you don't get buy in from all parties, including some very vocal observers, you will get more headaches and eventually the entire project can begin to fall apart. 

        Our project was moving along swimmingly for several months, we had chosen the cruise line, we had picked a few options for location, we were working on dates, this is where we started to lose control, the best friends ex husband, father of one of the teenagers going on the trip. He wasn't buying in to our project, when it would come time for us to run date options by him, he would often delay his responses, or not respond, sometimes would agree to a time frame only to come back with a no, we would come up with another option, and then would meet with budget constraints. In the end the family vacation was never taken. It is still a goal and I am hoping that in the next few years my son and I can go on a cruise, hopefully before he graduates high school.