Scope Creep

A scope creep is a term that refers to a slow and mostly unnoticed expansion of a project that causes its scope to increase in an uncontrolled manner. The result of a scope creep is that much more time and money must be invested in a project than was originally planned. The occurrence of scope creep is a major problem especially in waterfall projects. In these traditionally designed project, things like the scope, budget and deadline are fixed. An increase in scope in this case is highly undesirable, especially if it happens in a relatively unnoticed way. In agile projects, this development does not pose a problem. One way to prevent scope creep is to not allow changes within the project, to design an effective change management process or to abandon the traditional way of working and opt for the more change-oriented agile working method.