Encouraging Innovation Within Defined Project Scope
The Balancing Act of Innovation and Scope Control
Managing scope creep while enabling innovation is a delicate balancing act that project managers must perfect. Uncontrolled scope expansion can negatively impact budget, schedule, and resource allocation, while overzealous limiting of new ideas hinders opportunities to improve project outcomes. The key is aligning the project’s overarching vision and goals with enough flexibility to foster creativity.
Managing Scope Creep vs Enabling Innovation
Project managers walk a fine line between reining in scope creep and enabling impactful innovations. Scope creep refers to uncontrolled changes in a project’s scope leading to negative impacts on cost, timeline, quality, and resources. Innovation refers to new processes, technologies, or methodologies that can positively transform project outcomes. PMs must find the right balance between strictly managing scope creep and encouraging innovations aligned to project goals.
Aligning Project Vision with Allowance for New Ideas
An effective way to achieve balanced innovation is setting clearly defined project visions, objectives, requirements and non-negotiable elements while allowing flexibility for new ideas within those boundaries. For example, core project deliverables, quality standards, and major milestones should be fixed while teams can innovate on how they produce deliverables, meet standards and hit milestones.
Best Practices for Balanced Innovation
Project teams can foster impactful yet controlled innovation by implementing best practices around idea generation, evaluation, and integration balanced by clear project scoping.
Set Clear Overall Goals and Non-Negotiables
PMs must define macro-level goals, absolutely essential features or results, fixed budgets and timelines, and other unchangeable elements. This way teams know what aspects of the project cannot be altered when ideating innovations.
Designate “Innovation Time” for Exploring New Concepts
Effective teams set aside designated innovation sessions focused specifically on new ideas generation without the pressure of day-to-day project work. This “blank slate” mindset produces more creative concepts.
Establish Process for Pitching and Evaluating New Ideas
PMs should create standardized systems for pitching proposed innovations including templates for capturing costs, risks, projected impacts, alternatives, and mitigation tactics. Structured evaluation criteria help teams determine what ideas are aligned, cost-effective, and impactful.
Allow Flexibility in Implementation Details
While core project components may remain fixed, teams should have reasonable flexibility around how they execute tasks, leverage technologies, and produce deliverables provided they meet broader goals and standards.
Empowering Teams to Innovate Responsibly
Successful innovation starts with establishing an environment that empowers teams to think creatively while adhering to project parameters.
Foster Culture of Creativity Balanced by Project Focus
Leaders should encourage teams to ask “why not?” while exploring new ideas but reinforce focusing innovation on achieving project goals rather than running wild.
Incentivize Innovation Aligned to Project Vision
Tie performance metrics, compensation, recognition programs and other rewards explicitly to innovations that produce measurable gains towards project vision and stay within predefined boundaries.
Equip Teams with Tools and Guidelines for Innovating Wisely
Provide teams clear but flexible frameworks with guides for leveraging techniques like design thinking principles, quick prototyping, and minimum viable products balanced by project scope realities.
Celebrate and Share Successful Innovations
Highlight impactful innovations delivered within project guardrails to set the tone for continued creativity balanced with responsibility going forward.
Measuring and Monitoring Innovation Impact
Quantifying innovation outcomes provides insight into what ideas work and signals when ideas exceed acceptable boundaries.
Track Innovations’ Effect on Scope, Budget, Timeline
Compare metrics before and after innovation adoption to determine exact impact on project constraints. Document lessons learned for future idea evaluation.
Require Justification for Innovations Based on Metrics
Mandate data and metrics-based rationalization for proposed innovations that explain exactly how the idea aligns to goals and impacts key performance indicators
Build Early Warning Systems for Excessive Innovations
Put triggers and thresholds in place to flag scope, budget or timeline overruns so new innovations can be reined in before causing major issues.
Course Correct Innovations Exceeding Project Boundaries
Have documented processes to halt or readjust overly disruptive innovations that exceed guardrails before they compromise non-negotiable project elements.
Innovation Requires Communication and Transparency
Open information flow ensures stakeholders are aligned on innovation objectives and aware of ideas and impact.
Set Stakeholder Expectations on Innovation Allowance
Provide clear guidance to sponsors, customers and partners about project elements open for innovation vs closed to change to set appropriate perspectives.
Keep Stakeholders Informed of Innovations and Impact
Proactively communicate implemented innovations, projected and measured outcomes, and corrective actions if ideas exceed boundaries to maintain trust.
Be Clear on What Aspects are Flexible vs Fixed
Eliminate ambiguity on which project components can and cannot be altered through innovation to prevent misguided ideas that compromise must-haves.
