How to deal with scope creep
Consultants panic when their scope expands, but that reaction hurts their career. This post helps understand how partners think about scope. You’ll learn how to reframe this problem to stay in control
Sorry, I baited you. I won’t tell you how to deal with scope creep, per se.
But I want to discuss a far more important topic. If you still want to learn how to manage scope, read this post: Manage scope effectively to stay productive.
Do you hate scope creep?
Don’t tell me, I know. All consultants hate it. And I hated it.
You think you’re finally on top of things. The scope is clear. The deliverables are defined. The team is aligned.
Then the client keeps asking questions:
“Can we also look into this? Can you also do this?”
Most consultants panic. They start thinking:
How am I going to deliver that? Again, I am going to work late. The client is unreasonable. Leaders are pushovers.
But it’s dangerous thinking for you.
You fall into a negative mindset. Negativity is like poison. It poisons everything you see, think, and do. It turns even positive things into negative ones.
Suddenly, you find yourself in a downward spiral for no apparent reason. You make a self-inflicted wound.
You can’t be successful with this mindset.
Let me reframe it for you.
Try to see things from the perspective of your partners.
Let me explain.
The Partners’ Perspective
As an AP, I thought of scope creep as a good thing.
Consultants often think about extra workload, while partners think about additional value for clients.
There are two reasons for that:
1. Build trust
Clients ask for more work from consulting teams only when they trust them.
Just imagine the opposite picture.
The client boxed your team into the pre-defined scope. They don’t want you to do anything else. They see you as just another vendor.
When the scope never expands, that is not a win. It means the client is either disengaged, uninterested, or skeptical.
They don’t trust your opinions. They don’t think you are capable or smart enough. They don’t see you as thought partners.
That type of project is a nightmare for partners.
Believe me, you don’t want to end up working on these projects. Have you ever heard of 001 projects when partners blow the scope up?
They do it because they don’t have clients’ trust yet, and they want to win them over by doing much more than needed.
2. Create opportunity
Another powerful reframe:
Scope creep creates new opportunities for future projects.
When consultants see the scope creep, they think they have to deliver everything. That’s daunting and demotivating.
But for partners, it’s great news.
Because partners have sufficient experience and training to have a good conversation with a client, saying something like that:
Look, we have delivered the project scope. On top of that, we've done a bunch of extra things you asked us to do. I am happy to do more, but I simply can’t. My team will be taken away from me at the end of the project. But I know that the outstanding requests are absolutely critical for you. Let’s discuss how we can help you in the best way going forward.
And you know, clients are humans, they feel reciprocity like any other person. If you have built trust, helped them a lot, they will want to reciprocate and continue working with you. They will find the budget for a new project or whatever they need to do.
This is how partners build their book of business. This is how they meet their quotas. This is how your project gets extended or new ones created.
That’s why when you complain about scope creep, your words don’t land well. Your interests are not aligned with your partners.
You don’t look well at that moment. You position yourself like a junior person who doesn’t understand how the business works.
But there’s a better way for you to handle it.
Capacity of intelligence
Think of yourself as a capacity.
Not an ordinary capacity, but a capacity for intelligence.
In modern days, it’s trendy to speak about artificial intelligence. So you will understand the point I want to make. Basically, we use AI to solve our tasks.
Partners do the same staffing you on their projects. They want to leverage your intelligence. Not for making slides, not for doing Excel models, these are just means. They staff you for your ability to think and drive solutions.
It sounds cynical, but it helps you to see things clearly.
You are also a scarce and very expensive capacity. That is why partners want to fully utilize you.
Imagine yourself as a very sophisticated piece of machinery. You can do a lot, but you are also quite demanding in terms of maintenance. You need to sleep, you need to eat, you need to be motivated, etc.
Your capacity is limited. The more you expand your capacity, the more valuable you become. You have two main levers for expanding your capacity:
Time and Proficiency.
You can’t expand too much on the time dimension. We have only so many hours in a day. And I am sure you already work as many hours as physically possible. And if you push yourself more, you’ll burn out.
But proficiency is something you can expand almost without limits. And the results can be asymmetric. That’s where your main focus should be.
But let’s get back to the mental reframing.
That’s how I used to think about myself:
“I am a professional. I will work really hard. I will not be lazy. I will always prioritize focusing on the most important things at any moment. And I will do my absolute best to solve problems. But if the scope is more than I can do in the allotted time, that’s not my fault. I will not push myself beyond reasonable limits, because this way I will break myself. And it will hurt me personally.”
Do you know the key difference between you and machinery?
If the machine breaks because of overload, the responsible manager will be blamed for poor management.
But if you break because of burnout, your managers will blame you for poor self-management. They will replace you and never think of you again.
That’s why you should take full ownership of your productivity and well-being. And put strict time limits on how much you work and how well you recover.
Then, when scope creep happens, don’t panic.
You know it’s just another piece of work in your backlog. And your backlog was already big before that. Now it becomes slightly bigger. You will work as much as you can. But if you don’t finish everything, that’s fine. In fact, it’s impossible to finish your backlog because your leaders will always generate more work to keep you fully utilized.
When I reframed myself like this, I gave up all the negative emotions and feelings about scope creep and the huge workload. That was a massive waste of energy on things I couldn’t really control. I started focusing on the quality of my delivery and expanding my capacity for intelligence.
So quit the victim mindset:
Stop sabotaging yourself by sending junior vibes to your managers and partners, saying things like that:
“Priorities keep changing.”
“There’s scope creep.”
“This wasn’t in the plan.”
” OMG, we're all going to die…”
These words create a victim mindset. They make you feel negative. They irritate your leaders.
They imply consulting should be stable, linear, and predictable.
But it isn’t. And it never will be.
A better frame is:
“I am operating in a complex system that responds to client needs. Chaos is the normal part of the job, like a battlefield in war. My job is to manage my capacity, elevate my thinking, and protect my productivity.”
No drama. No panic. Just extreme ownership.
When you think this way, you stop seeing added work as an attack. You start seeing it as an integral part of consulting work.
Your leaders will notice this shift immediately.
Because it is rare, and it is powerful.
If you want to learn more about how to negotiate your current scope with your leaders, read my detailed guide on this topic:
If you are an MBB consultant and want to improve your performance through personalized coaching support:
We will discuss your pain points, challenges, and aspirations. No strings attached, just straight answers to your biggest questions.
If you want to learn more about my coaching program, read this post:
The coaching program for MBB consultants.