cdonlan 18448 (8/23/2011)
jfmartin (8/18/2011)
I understand but... is it only in IT that we have a lot of changes ?I think its the same thing everywhere, in construction, transportation, etc.
For me, its more than a project management problem.
I don't thing its a good idea to defend IT with this type of example if we compare to other industry.
IT is still relative new in industry.
Good question and I think you partly answer the question by noting that IT is a relatively new industry. However, just as the article illustrates, changes tend to be characterized as 'simple' by the end users. I'm willing to bet that most mature industries ... take construction (it's been around for centuries) don't often have clients telling the general contractor to knock out a wall after the house has been built and expect it to have a marginal impact because they have an adequate understanding of the wall and it's function.
I'm in the process of having a bathroom added to my house. The scope creep so far has caused it to go from a 12-14k project to a 20k project. And it was caused by such simple things as our contractor discovered that the floor sloped more than he though, and so it took more to level it. Or in another case we realized both my wife and the contractor had forgotten the cost of the toilet. So I have to say that scope creep can happen anywhere, and probably in any industry.
That being said I think it is somewhat different in the IT industry. The level of complexity tends to be far higher, and its harder to bring all interested parties to the table to plan. Not to mention that if you are building a 10 million dollar overpass, its not unreasonable to spend 6 months planning. A lot of times IT projects are done with days, hours, or sometimes even no planing. A lot of times we plan for the project as we are actually writing the code. And of course as stated above, IT is a somewhat new industry.
Kenneth
Kenneth FisherI was once offered a wizards hat but it got in the way of my dunce cap.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------For better, quicker answers on T-SQL questions, click on the following... http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/[/url]For better answers on performance questions, click on the following... http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/SQLServerCentral/66909/[/url]Link to my Blog Post --> www.SQLStudies.com[/url]