Project Scope Creep Report

Question: Discuss about the Project Scope Creep Report. Answer: Introduction Every Information technology project is executed with a specific set of deliverables, and has an expected closure time for the completion of the project. Before this closure period of the project, there are some predetermined set of activities that needs to be completed to finish the project successfully. These tasks or activities constitute the scope of any project. Therefore, failure in completing those tasks results in scope creep. Assessment on current project status For the given project of computer security department, it is intended to upgrade the computer systems at all its 87 sites under its jurisdiction. For this up gradation process, the CSD (computer security department) hired Good Programs. Till now the project is not completed and need extra budget of $185,000 to complete the project. Both the CEO and the project manager responsible for the initiation of the project are moved out from the organization. In addition to this there is no documentation or report about the project which can inform the new CEO about the progress in the report . Till now, there are some outstanding software issues and features are yet to be added to the client management system. As there is no proper documentation about the expenditure on different aspects of the project, therefore it causes overhead for the new Finance manager and CEO at the Computer security department. Therefore now, the department is asking for help from a consultant so that it can complete the project with minimum amount of time and expenditure. Structure of the report (Based on Scope creep) This report is structured on the basis of the scope creep of a project. After the project is initiated, the responsible project management team from Good Programs, failed to deliver the deliverables of the project on time such as adding extra features to the client management system. Even though, the company is unable to deliver, it promised to the CSD to add extended features to its systems. The company promised so in order to be in the essence of the Research and development site. Comparison with sound project management practices There are some standard practices in handling any kind of project. These are, project organization, WBS, managing project change, measuring performance. The project organization includes the stakeholder analysis for the project and development of core team to which the project team will report the status of the project. In this case both of tasks are not done at the starting of the project. The Work breakdown structure helps in the allocation of resources and assignment of tasks to the individuals so that; the resource usage can be tracked. This standard practice is also not implemented in the project of CSD. Recommended steps to bring the project to a close As there is no project manager for the project of CSD the organization must appoint a professional project manager to efficiently manage the project. For finance manager or any other manager from different departments does not have any prior knowledge and experience of handling a project, thus the whole project gets messed up and due to inefficiency of the project manager the expected results are also remains un-achieved. A professional project manager can crash or fast track the activities in a project whenever there is any financial or deadline related issue. Surveying the scenario to determine what have been completed and which parts are going to be implemented as the part of the project must be clearly specified to the project team. Depending on this a optimum budget and time schedule must be allocated for the completion of the project. Recommended improvement to the future projects In future whenever the department considers a project to implement it must take care of some factors that will help in ensuring the success of the undertaken project [3]. At first the department must develop a change control board since after the completion of every project there is always a change in the way operations are done previously. The department must evaluate the involved risks in developing and implementing the changes. The team will be responsible for categorizing different risks in categories of low, medium, high. The organization have to specify the must have requirements expected at the end of the project. This can be made clear by using a check list for them. These kind of check list helps in the tracking the progress of the project after each phase of the project is completed. It also helps in checking the deliverables from the project team. As the employees in the department plays a key role in the whole scenario, therefore the CSD should involve and engage them in the project from the beginning so that the requirements can be specified from the end users perspective. Again the appointed project team should take care of the operational requirements of the CSD so that they can make them understand that, the change requested by the department considerably different from the approved requirements in the requirement specification phase of the project. In addition to that, the team should explain to the department about the way changes to scope can impact on the budget, schedule and allocated resources of the project. Skill sets to be used to appoint a project manager Team management skill: A project manager must be an individual who can tie up the project team together in order to achieve the predetermined target. The team together changes from a group of strange persons to a solitary cohesive unit; and working together to achieve a common goal or objective. Other than driving a project team from a strategic viewpoint, project managers likewise need to handle the team from an operational perspective. A good project manager is responsible for administration of project, assigning activities or tasks, settling objectives, and assessing execution of the project. Ability to manage the change: Change management is a complex task to perform. It's for the most part about surveying and recording every change request from the clients end, and ensuring that it is endorsed or rejected by somebody who has the authority to do so[5]. The team have to do a full examination of the effect of the change on the project and the affirm/dismiss choices ought to be direct as the change have the capacity to see whether the change will cost the team cash or time. Conclusion As seen in the project of CSD, there is no documented and clearly defined requirement from the clients site. These leads to the scope creep for the project and hence the Good Program was unable to address the specific requirements of CSD. In addition to this, the CEO of the department must keep track of the progress of the project periodically so that the tasks can be crashed or fast tracked in order to complete the project. Since a project schedule is firmly fixing to the conveyance course of events and the degree, a little variance in the extension can influence conveyance and thusly influence the accomplishment of the project. References M. Keutel and D. 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