Some project sponsors know in advance that they cannot secure the organizational commitment necessary for what they actually want to do. To overcome obstacles, they seek approval for something else that's related, but different and less ambitious. Once that's underway, the organization is "hooked," and they begin expanding the scope of that smaller effort to achieve their heretofore hidden agendas.

The spine of a human male. One example from nature of probable scope creep is the "mission" of the human spine. The modern prevalence of back troubles and back pain suggests the possibility that what we now ask the spine to do is well beyond its original mission. We're larger than we have ever been, and we carry loads of such a size and in such a manner that the spine is constantly at risk. Some employers insist that employees wear "back belts" as protection, but there is no scientific evidence that they are effective in preventing injury. Photo courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine.
I call this tactic scopemonging and its practitioners scopemongers. Some call these people scope creeps.
Sometimes the target of the misrepresentation isn't the project team — it's the owner of the sponsor's budget. When the sponsor is an external customer, as it would be for a contracted services provider, the target is probably a budget owner within the customer organization. But wherever the target is, the team can suffer the consequences, which can appear as pressure, overtime, or long, unpaid extra hours.
Here are some indicators that scope creep might be part of a hidden agenda.
- Inexplicable passion
- When a project sponsor seems inexplicably passionate about what seems to be a dull or inconsequential effort, check for hidden agendas. Possibly something more is planned, but it hasn't yet made its appearance.
- When passion and commitment seem out of proportion to the project at hand, investigate. If you know or can guess what else might be intended, try removing from the team or the project any elements that, though inessential for the stated purpose, might be necessary for the conjectured scope expansion. If no expansion is contemplated, removal of those items should meet no resistance.
- It just doesn't make sense
- If the sponsor's or champion's vision doesn't hang together logically, consider the possibility that you aren't hearing the whole story. Ask yourself what the missing pieces might be. Once you know what they are, the vision might indeed make sense.
- If the sponsor's or champion's
vision doesn't hang together
logically, consider the possibility
that you aren't hearing
the whole storyIf you suspect that pieces are missing from the sponsor's requests, argue for their inclusion in a "not-requirements" section of the project plan. Once everyone agrees that these items are explicitly out of bounds for this project, any subsequent scope expansion to include these items will be much more difficult. - Resistance to not-requirements
- When you first propose a set of not-requirements, you might encounter resistance, which could be evidence of some intention eventually to include the proposed not-requirements as actual requirements.
- If the discussion occurs early enough in the planning cycle, you might be able to insert the proposed not-requirements as actual requirements, which usually triggers estimation of their costs. The ensuing dialog will likely expose the impractical nature of the items in question.
Sometimes, the organization rewards scopemongers for "making things happen" and "having a can-do attitude." If that's the case where you work, the problem is bigger than one scope creep — it might be unwritten policy. We'll examine more indicators of scopemonging next time. Top
Next Issue
Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!
For more about scope creep, see "Ground Level Sources of Scope Creep," Point Lookout for July 18, 2012; "The Perils of Political Praise," Point Lookout for May 19, 2010; "More Indicators of Scopemonging," Point Lookout for August 29, 2007; "Some Causes of Scope Creep," Point Lookout for September 4, 2002; "The Deck Chairs of the Titanic: Strategy," Point Lookout for June 29, 2011; and "The Deck Chairs of the Titanic: Task Duration," Point Lookout for June 22, 2011.
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
Ten Tactics for Tough Times: II
- When you find yourself in a tough spot politically, what can you do? Most of us obsess about the situation
for a while, and then if we still have time to act, we do what seems best. Here's Part II of a set of
approaches that can organize your thinking and shorten the obsessing.
How to Get Promoted in Place
- Do you think you're overdue for a promotion? Many of us do, judging by the number of Web pages that
talk about promotions, getting promoted, or asking for promotions. What you do to get a promotion depends
on what you're aiming for.
Managing Pressure: Communications and Expectations
- Pressed repeatedly for "status" reports, you might guess that they don't want status —
they want progress. Things can get so nutty that responding to the status requests gets in the way of
doing the job. How does this happen and what can you do about it? Here's Part I of a little catalog
of tactics and strategies for dealing with pressure.
Dismissive Gestures: I
- Humans are nothing if not inventive. In the modern organization, where verbal insults are deprecated,
we've developed hundreds of ways to insult each other silently (or nearly so). Here's part one of a
catalog of nonverbal insults.
Conflicts of Interest in Reporting
- Reporting is the process that informs us about how things are going in the organization and its efforts.
Unfortunately, the people who do the reporting often have a conflict of interest that leads to misleading
and unreliable reports.
See also Workplace Politics and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming March 29: Time Slot Recycling: The Risks
- When we can't begin a meeting because some people haven't arrived, we sometimes cancel the meeting and hold a different one, with the people who are in attendance. It might seem like a good way to avoid wasting time, but there are risks. Available here and by RSS on March 29.
And on April 5: The Fallacy of Division
- Errors of reasoning are pervasive in everyday thought in most organizations. One of the more common errors is called the Fallacy of Division, in which we assume that attributes of a class apply to all members of that class. It leads to ridiculous results. Available here and by RSS on April 5.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group