It’s called Scope Creep. It happens when someone says ‘we need a new dishwasher’ and seven months later, after walls have been removed, new cabinets have been set in place and new appliances hooked up, that you realize the $900 dishwasher cost way more and took a lot more time. Classic scope creep!
Most project managers recognize scope creep is happening when someone says, ‘Well, while we’re doing this anyway, let’s <fill in the blank>.’
Time to assess progress and celebrate accomplishments! I started working with the UTC Communications and Marketing team in mid-September to provide project management for the Drupal migration. As projects often layout, a few other tasks have crept into the initial plan, but I’d like everyone to recognize what has been accomplished in summary form:
Birds definitely do it. Bees and educated fleas might do it.
I can surely state that data definitely…migrates. In that old song the metaphor referred more to falling in love than moving software and data around, but the concept of migration applies. Software and data don’t fly south for the winter, but they can fly to another location and those in information technology refer to this as a ‘migration.’
Do you remember playing the Telephone Game as a child?
It’s the game where someone whispers a story to the next person and the whispering continues around the circle until the final ‘receiver’ relays the message to the entire group. Most of the time, this is followed by laughter as the story details have changed dramatically with each new receiver on the other end of the telephone line. The grapevine or the water cooler can be metaphors for the Telephone Game played out in adult conversations.