Analyzing Scope Creep

To begin, I have not personally been a part of a project that experienced issues related to scope creep. I have however held a position that continuously experienced scope creep. I found that this has been coined “mission creep”. “One of the most common forms of mission creep, however, is not a project at all. It's your overall job” (Wade, 2008, pg 1). That position is the position I hold currently. When I began my job 4 years ago, I started as a Title 1 Tutor. What this involved was pulling students from their classrooms for extra help with reading skills. The students could be pulled individually or in small groups from kindergarten and first grade.
As the years progressed more responsibilities were given to the Title 1 Tutors in response to our work ethic and abilities. Many of us were asked to do more testing, help with classes, run committees (such as Right to Read Week and Dr Seuss Week), and sometimes even teach small group classes (9 students). As we got better at our job, more responsibilities were added, but the perception that we “did nothing” still existed among some of the regular teachers. Our school secretary was quoted as saying, “Title 1 Tutors should be the best teachers in the building”, yet we were still not seen as doing as much as a regular teacher. Sometimes I thought we did more. At the end of this school year, I was hired as a full time Kindergarten teacher; this will be my first year to compare Title and Regular Ed. It should be interesting!

As I think back to my experience with scope creep, I feel that the better we got, the more things got thrown at us. We got pretty good at juggling, however now that a new person must come in to do the job; I think it is going to be very difficult. For a new person, everything is going to be thrown at them all at once, without the slow addition to the duties. Instead they will be expected to do as we have in the past 4 years, instead of fulfilling the initial duties as I did when I began. I also think that throwing more duties at us, just because we got better at our job, didn’t necessarily feel right to us. It wasn’t the type of reward system I was looking for!  As a manager of these new Title 1 Tutors I would have them shadow one of the “experienced” Title 1 Tutors for a week to get a grasp of how to do things, and how not to. I think this sort of apprenticeship would be a good way to “get their toes wet”. This would allow for scope creep/mission creep to be non-existent. The tutors would know their responsibilities from the beginning.

Wade, M. S. (2008, November 21). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2008/11/21/mission-creep-hey-who-changed-my-job-responsibilities