Years ago I moved to Washington State form North Carolina. In the process of the move I decided to leave my vehicle, with hopes of finding a way to get it there later. It took me about a month to get settled in, and eventually I got tired of taking public transportation to get around. I thought it would be more feasible if I got my vehicle shipped rather than flying home and driving cross country. I had to take into account that the cost would simply be too high with having to pay for a ticket for me and my daughter to fly, pay for gas on a long road trip, lodging in order to get rest in between states, and plus the amount of time it would take to get my car their. With all that to be considered, I decided to get my vehicle shipped by a professional auto transport company.
I did research and found a reputable company, paid the non-refundable deposit and set the date for pick up. Everything was on track until……. you’ve got it “Scope Creep”. Let’s just say the car ended up residing in North Carolina for the next four years, due to unexpected circumstances. Scope creep is the change or growth of project scope and my car not being in Washington State with me, turned out to be that change.
Scope changes can make a project larger or smaller, and affect the timeline and the cost of the project (Gurlen, 2003). I lost money, my patients, and most importantly what I was working so hard to get, my car. Even though it was hard for me to handle at the time, I had to adjust to the fact that I would have to depend on public transportation for just a little while longer. After about another couple of months, I saved up some money and bought a used car. That car turned out to be a lemon, but I luckily got my money back and purchased a more reliable vehicle.
What I thought was an easy task or project, turned out to be a little bit of a headache, kind of like scope creep. I made the best out of the situation and found my self becoming more independent and capable of making important decisions. I was young, but learned very important life lessons from this little situation which grew to be a bigger, but workable problem.
References:
Gurlen, S. (2003). Scope Creep. Retrieved February 9, 2011 from, Web site:
http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/6840_f03_papers/gurlen/
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
