The tug of war between the scope and deliverables is a very common source of conflict in Procurement projects. This phenomenon is often referred to as “scope creep” – a development wherein the scope of a project begins to drift beyond the original bounds, significantly modifying the end result. While Scope creep is well-defined within the more general context of project management, we will seek to define and explore it with a more specific focus on cross-organizational, facilitative roles Procurement teams play within organizations.
The key high-level difference between Procurement-specific Scope creep and the more general, PMO-focused manifestations of the term lies in Procurement’s understanding of who the “client” really is – while all projects have stakeholders, the stakeholder relationship as experienced by Procurement professionals often leans towards a client/customer structure, creating a second, internal customer. Procurement must work to define and assemble projects with their internal customer (the client), while simultaneously synthesizing these requirements into an implementation plan to be leveraged by the external customer team. For the purposes of scope, this means that Procurement managers are effectively contending with two interdependent projects for every one project that is tracked on the executive level, each with their own scope and potential for Scope creep.
This dual-scoped nature found in Procurement projects creates a situation where Procurement team members are required to support both customers at all times while also facilitating communication between the two. While we will be picking either the vendor or the internal stakeholder in the following examples, it’s important to keep in mind that each of the below features can present itself just as easily on the side of either the internal or external customer. This necessitates twice the vigilance on the part of Procurement teams to mitigate twice the risk of Scope creep. With this idea in mind, let’s review three other common features found in projects Creeping out of their original Scope:
Massaging Requirements
Perhaps the crisis event most relevant to Procurement on this list, the act of massaging deliverables, can be understood as minor, pre-implementation modifications or redefinitions to project requirement documentation that take place over the course of ongoing negotiations. When negotiating, a siloed secondary documentation flow will often naturally develop between vendor-side Account Executives, Sales Managers and the Procurement team. For example, Procurement might request better pricing on a specific offering, and the vendor team might accept that and counter with a reduction of available overtime hours. Even if this change represents a mathematical quick win on the savings side, stakeholders need to be appraised of these changes at all times before they are finalized, as this type of “massaging” can quickly evolve documents into something entirely different than the original intent.
Gold Plating Deliverables
Vendors aim to please; while negotiations often feel cutthroat, many vendors will seek to over deliver, adding in small bonuses or additional segments of functionality – a phenomenon known as “Gold Plating.” Thought value-capture is a huge part of Procurement’s role within a given organization, it’s important for Procurement teams to keep in mind that project-level changes fall within stakeholder purview. For this reason, Procurement will need to ensure on a case-by-case basis that any changes resulting from Gold Plating will not require technical Scope expansion. For example, if a software vendor offers an additional module for the first year, it is possible that the module’s inclusion could have ramifications on the integration side, costing your own IT department time or resources. Essentially, what may appear appealing on the surface may create unforeseen issues if we do not do our due diligence as Procurement professionals.
Change Tracking
While the concept that changes should be tracked is among the oldest and most often repeated in project-related literature, the definition of a “change” can be a gray area. Given the number of projects most Procurement organizations run in parallel, minor changes often come through in a trickle via email chains and phone conversations, presenting the temptation to simply pass a change along the relevant third party – an action that, when repeated regularly, can rapidly divorce the current state of a project from its scoping document. For this reason, it is always a best practice to maintain a collaborative and shared “project overview” document. The best way to ensure these ongoing scope changes are tracked is to simplify the process of tracking changes and continually share the current state of the project with all parties involved.
Though these are just a few of the common drivers of Scope creep that are often faced by modern Procurement teams, they serve to illustrate the importance of maintaining a strong interdepartmental ethos. With the rise of business literature as a pop-culture phenomenon, the vernacular of Procurement has veered towards that of classic sales literature, emphasizing “quick wins” and “value plays”. There’s nothing wrong with winning or capturing value, however, the most core consideration for any Procurement team should be fidelity to the original – accurately capturing and preserving the needs of internal clients. We are facilitators, project managers, and negotiators, but most importantly, we are a functional black box that accepts stakeholder requirements and produces vendor results. Scope creep simply represents a misalignment between these two parties – not only on a project level, in some cases, but within the priority structure of the Procurement team themselves.
