Scope Creeps
For those of you old enough to remember the fantastic movie Charlie and the Cholate factory or its remake with Johnny Dep (see the original; so much better) you may remember the uber privileged teenage girl, Variuka Salt. She wanted everything and she wanted it now. It did not matter what it was, she wanted it, right at the moment. This is human nature but then so is beating your neighbor with a club and taking their pizza and big screen tv for your own. Ideally, we live in a professional world of adults who realize one must pay for what they want and execution takes time and focus. Unfortunately, not everyone involved in a project development acts like an adult. There are many Variuka Salts out there, they come in all shapes, sizes, genders, and backgrounds. Surely, your project is likely to be involved with at least one. The question becomes; how do you deal with one. Here are a few approaches:
Isolate Them: Make it clear to stake holders that the specific demand by the specific colleague will have X incremental costs and Y impact on the project time line and be direct in how the benefits, if any, will be realized only by a limited few. If necessary get other departments on your side by clearly explaining the impact on the primary objectives of the project.
Make Them Put Skin in the Game: Its funny how quickly seemingly critical requirements evaporate when the person proposing them realizes they must make an effort or assume some risk to make them happen. More simply, talk is cheap, let them put their money (ie. their budget, thier time, thier reputation) where their mouth is… Sure, that is an interesting idea, it will cost the project an estimated X dollars; can you divert some of your departments budget to cover it ?
No Emotion: Never, Never, Never, succumb to their emotional tactics or lower yourself to respond with outward emotion. Stay even, stay calm, your information and the ability to clearly and cleanly present it will win the day. Even if it doesn’t, one battle does not make a war.
If you permit your project or initiative to become bloated, if you allow your project team to have to carry the extra weight of low-value requirements, you will fail… Just wanting something is not enough, that goes for Variuka Salt, and everyone else, including you.