How to Reconcile Scope Creep in Agile Development

Product development can often feel like racing toward a moving finish line. Projects often go over budget and deadlines are easily missed. Even worse, constant changes can turn a straightforward project into one doomed to fail.

Project managers and scrum masters accept the perils of evolving project deliverables and timelines. They use the resources at their disposal to mitigate risk and navigate around potential disasters. It starts with a management framework.

Markets and trends in the business world shift quickly. Seeing the writing on the wall, 36% of product or application owners and 32% of engineering and R&D teams have adopted agile practices.

Chances are your company has adopted an agile approach to manage fast-changing expectations and demands. But being agile doesn’t mean you’re immune to the dangers of scope creep. Here, we’ll explain how you can manage scope creep in agile development for your next product.

What is scope creep?

So, what exactly is scope creep in project management? Scope creep occurs when the requirements of a project continuously grow. When alterations or expansions go unchecked, the original scope of the project outgrows its initial plan.

Understanding scope creep in agile development

In agile development, a framework prepares you for changes such as altered deliverables. Your team can react to new requirements quickly in the current or next sprint. Management controls ensure the entire project team from project stakeholders to the project manager stays locked on a moving target.

However, this doesn’t mean an agile project scope can’t outgrow its resources. Small change requests from the product owner can bloat out workloads.

For example, let’s say you’re working on email tracking software. The original plan was to develop a desktop app with mobile support. Now, you’re being asked to also write a mobile app. Before you know it, you will need to build a browser-based app to meet the owner’s changing requirements.

Poorly researched projects can lead to much more backend work than previously expected. It might even turn out that a greenfield project isn’t as “green” as expected.

What causes scope creep?

A 2022 survey found an agile/scrum approach was second only to DevOps as a method for software development, so it’s clearly a growing approach. But scope creep in agile development is a reality for many scrum masters and project managers.

Here are some of the causes:

• Vague project objectives: Poorly defined requirements leave things open up for interpretation. This results in a disconnect between what the product owners want and your initial project plan.
• Underestimating complexity: Failing to understand what’s required before beginning a project leads to confusion among the team. Sprints with nearly unattainable deliverables and feature requirements will become the norm.
• Bad communication: Poor feedback and miscommunication between stakeholders, team members, and product owners can result in misunderstandings about the initial project scope.
• No stakeholder input: If the team or an expert isn’t involved in initial meetings and plans, owner requests can quickly evolve into unrealistic expectations. Stakeholder feedback informs controls and decision-making that handle scope creep.
• Lack of governance controls: When people don’t have the authority to manage projects, scope creep goes unchecked as product owners steer the direction of a project toward infinity.

Identifying scope creep

The scope will almost always change during the lifetime of a project. But you need to be able to identify when scope creep is derailing a project.

Look out for these key indicators:

• Changes that fall outside of your contingency planning
• Workloads that outpace team resources or responsibilities
• Consistently missing deadlines for features or other targets
• Poor project definitions, such as acceptance criteria or change request protocols
• Progress pacing that is erratic or comes to a standstill
• A sudden increase in requests from stakeholders or owners
• Team members taking shortcuts and bypassing controls to hit deliverables
• Development costs that exceed the budget

6 Ways to reconcile scope creep in agile projects

The 17th State of Agile Report found that 68% of software development teams use agile principles and practices. Adoption rates are growing because the proof is in the pudding.

Greater flexibility allows for greater efficiency and productivity. A preventative approach to scope creep ensures your team will deliver successful projects at a higher rate. The caveat is that you must maintain project agility while keeping scope creep in check.

1. Define project requirements

Stakeholders and your software teams must work with management to define project requirements. Rank project criteria according to user impact and business value. A good starting point is to clearly define your minimum viable product (MVP).

Prioritize your project goals. This will vary by organization and project. Is meeting the project deadline or customer satisfaction more important? What quality standards must be met for “success”?

Use project guidelines as the foundation before adopting an agile approach. Plan your Way of Working (WoW). Leave room for contingencies so you can deal with the inevitable project alterations.

2. Engage the entire team

A recent survey found that the biggest challenges to agile developers are lack of leadership participation (42%) and knowledge (40%). Agile teams can better react to scope changes when everyone is on board and understands the project strategy.

Involve a cross-functional group of team members during project planning that includes:

• Product owner: Represents the voice and vision of the customer and the end-user. They define the produced features and manage the product backlog.
• Scrum master: Fosters an agile environment by putting the right tools and processes in place. Ensures adherence to an agile framework.
• Development teams: Those on the frontlines who are responsible for delivering the product.
• Stakeholders: End-users, managers, and others with a vested interest in the final product.
• Outsourced teams: Subject matter experts or specialists who assist with sprints or project planning.
• UX or UI designers: Those who build the user interface and help developers meet the vision of a project’s user stories.
• QA engineers: Maintain quality assurance and ensure compliance standards are met. Oversee incremental approval based on predetermined criteria.
• Release managers: In charge of version or feature releases throughout development.
• Iterative managers: Coach the team to optimize the agile process during development and testing.
• Support teams: Deal with end-users and give valuable feedback on the current state or version of the product.

Cross-functional representation better prepares your team to reconcile scope creep. Along the way, ensure the team stays on top of remote support developments and implements measures such as real-time monitoring tools to track user experience.

3. Align stakeholder expectations with agile development realities

Stakeholder input helps shape the project criteria and flesh out components such as user stories. Communication and constant feedback will keep your project on track.

Sometimes, a feature or change request is just not practical or possible. You may not have the technological expertise. Or you may not have the project resources to effectively stay within deadlines and on budget.

Scrum masters and developers can easily educate stakeholders and customers. When something isn’t realistic, provide alternatives.

For example, let’s say the product owner wants the new implementation to operate on monolithic architecture. This request creates development constraints that make success unachievable. The scrum master proposes that cloud native architecture is the best solution.

4. Release incrementally and often

Don’t get stuck in a traditional line of thinking when it comes to agile development. Nothing needs to be linear. You can deal with scope creep as the project progresses without having to go back to the beginning.

Take advantage of the iterative approach by using short sprints and releases incrementally. Do this as often as makes sense for your team and stakeholders. Incremental releases help you focus on short-term goals and keep a tight leash on project scope.

5. Use the right agile techniques and tools

Much as lead scoring tools help your sales teams identify leads which are worth pursuing, an agile framework helps you better serve the needs of stakeholders and end-users.

Remember, the primary ideology behind agile development is flexibility. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Pick and choose what works best for your organization.

Some agile frameworks at your disposal include:

• Scrum: Iterative approach with self-organizing teams. Cross-functional communication and feedback are key to managing project scope.
• Kanban: Visual management tool for workflow operations. Project managers track the progress of tasks and adjust accordingly to meet delivery deadlines.
• Lean: Guided by principles to eliminate waste or redundancies. Aims to deliver a project as quickly as possible.
• SAFe: An agile framework designed to scale with large enterprises. Aligns the efforts of multiple teams in multiple locations to meet the strategic needs of the business.

Use tools like Spark SQL for structured data to facilitate an exceptional developer experience. An agile framework guides your project planning. However, you can further customize by adding elements, such as product backlogs or iterative planning.

6. Review every sprint

Sprints are a natural part of most agile frameworks, including scrum approaches. One of the best ways to monitor scope creep is with retrospective reviews. Sprint reviews allow team members and project stakeholders to discuss changes.

Maybe the most recent sprint had developers feeling squeezed. Maybe the most recent release missed the target of what the product owner had in mind. User or stakeholder feedback helps prevent your team from building a product that is out of spec. At the same time, it lets developers raise the red flag if sprints are creeping out of scope.

Stay agile, prevent scope creep

The agile principle allows your team to manage change, meet deadlines, and deliver the desired user experience. Unfortunately, scope creep in agile development can mean the death of a project.

But you don’t need to fear the creeping death of scope growth. Follow the agile best practices in this guide. A well-earned plan will unleash rapid, flexible software development for your organization.