Scope Creep

Scope Creep

Many years ago I worked as a computer programmer for a local printing company.  It was my first job out of school and I felt lucky that the company gave me a chance at a job with them since my degree was not in computer programming.  I graduated college with a B. A. in Communication and a Business Programming Certificate (the equivalent of an Associate’s degree).  Like many college graduates at the time I did not start working in a field related to my degree so I guess you could say that the scope creep actually started early because I was working outside my knowledge base.

The position I held was as a computer programmer and I worked on many different projects.  One project in particular was to take a local bank’s information with regard to their clients names and addresses and print out form letters addressed directly to the clients.  Like I said it was many years ago so at the time to do a project such as this it took a lot of programming just to format the data correctly.  The data was supplied in all capitals and we had to convert it to proper format (upper and lower case letters – there was not an app for that!).  Along with doing the programming to convert the data we quickly learned that special programming was needed to have the machines that ran the printers actually print the material properly.  This special programming was not considered in the original estimate.

Along with the extra programming needed for the printer there was the added situation that I was a new programmer and did not have the experience needed to program the printer for the extra work.  I had never been trained in the programming language the printer used so I had to learn how to program the printer fast.  I do not know if the inexperience was factored into the job estimate or not, however I have a feeling it was not considered because I came on board after the contract was awarded and before another programmer on the team decided to leave. 

Keeping in mind that I was a new programmer straight out of college I was inexperienced and as many inexperienced people do in their first job, they make mistakes.  I made a major mistake when writing the program to convert the data from all capitals to upper and lower case.  The mistake I made was that I did not clear one of my fields and thus when the field populated with data, that field stayed populated with data and was never blanked out.  What happened is that one of the clients had a long name and part of their name was duplicated to the clients that came after them, for example:

                                100^th client -> MR. JOHN WILLIAM MICHAEL JAMES III M.D.

                                101^st client -> MRS. EDITH JAMES

After applying my program:

                                100^th client -> Mr. John William Michael James III M.D.

                                101^st client -> Mrs. Edith James  M.D.

The field which held the “M.D.” data never cleared so everyone printed as a doctor after their name.  As you may guess this was a major issue and it needed to be fixed.  The mailings had already started going out and the issue was actually caught by one of the clients reporting it back to the bank.  I spent the better part of 3 days fixing this issue.  I never made that mistake again however it cost a lot to the company. Now in hindsight and after taking the class I am taking for Project Management, I am realizing just how much my “little” mistake cost the company.

Not that these issues were enough to deal with, the bank that hired us came back and requested that we do a second mailing as part of the project.  They wanted us to create their W2s for tax season while we were doing these form letters.  The request for the W2s was not in the original contact.  The bank needed to supply the data for the W2s and we had to do special programming again to print these specialized forms.  Not being involved in the negotiations I really do not know what transpired in the meetings for the contract, all I know is that we had to do additional work for the bank that was not originally requested and we had to work a lot of overtime to complete the project.

Scope creep happened several times within the project, some self-inflicted and some directed by the client.  It was a great learning experience for me and at the time I did not realize that it was scope creep.  The experience definitely had an impact because it is now 20+ years later and I remember the experience like it was yesterday.  There was another instance of scope creep with that same company but I will not elaborate on that one at this juncture.  Suffice it to say that the scope creep happened when the division I was working at in my home town was closing and they were consolidating with another division in another state.  My job was to help them move the projects to the new facility; however when I arrived at the other location instead of helping train people on the contacts being moved, the management had me working on new projects thus splitting my time between projects – big scope creep!

Looking back on these issues, if I was management, I do not know how these issues could have been avoided – definitely not the mistake.  In the situation of the additional request I would hope I would have had enough strength to say to the client that this addition is really not an addition it is actually a new project and we will treat it as such.  The management at the time did not want to upset this client because the bank was their biggest client.  It is easy to “talk a good game” and say that I would have made them do a new project but who knows what politics would have drove me to do in the same situation.  In the case of the inexperienced employee (myself) and needing more time to complete the project, that was not the bank’s issue it was my company’s issue so we needed to find ways to make the project work and be delivered on time.  Overtime was the only option because the company was short staffed.  As I came on board another more experienced person was giving their notice.  I am sure that if the experienced person had been around there would be more hands on oversight of what I was doing thus hopefully avoiding the mistake altogether.