--- title: "What is scope creep? · DeliverySheet" description: "Scope creep is the build-up of unrecorded additions to a commitment's scope: each too small to renegotiate the promise, together large enough to break it." canonical_url: "https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/scope-creep" meta: author: "Tan Gravam" "og:description": "Scope creep is the build-up of unrecorded additions to a commitment's scope: each too small to renegotiate the promise, together large enough to break it." "og:image": "https://www.deliverysheet.com/_og/s/o_68bc74288a6b258b.png" "og:image:alt": "Scope creep — DeliverySheet glossary card" "og:image:height": "600" "og:image:type": image/png "og:image:width": "1200" "og:title": "What is scope creep? — DeliverySheet glossary" "twitter:description": "Scope creep is the build-up of unrecorded additions to a commitment's scope: each too small to renegotiate the promise, together large enough to break it." "twitter:image": "https://www.deliverysheet.com/_og/s/o_68bc74288a6b258b.png" "twitter:image:alt": "Scope creep — DeliverySheet glossary card" "twitter:title": "What is scope creep? — DeliverySheet glossary" --- > Index of every page on this site: [llms.txt](https://www.deliverysheet.com/llms.txt) [← All terms](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary) **Glossary ** # **What is scope creep?** Scope creep is the accumulation of unrecorded additions to a commitment's scope — each too small to renegotiate the promise, together large enough to break it. The working defence is not vigilance; it is a dated out-of-scope list. An in-scope list describes an intention, but the explicit record of what you are NOT doing is what holds when someone asks for one more thing in week six — because the answer changes from "no" to "that was decided, and here is the reason". ## **Scope creep vs scope change** A scope change is a re-decision on the record: something is added or removed, the commitment is re-baselined, and the reason is written down next to the original. Scope creep is the same addition without any of that — agreed in a thread or a corridor, absorbed into the work, and invisible until the date slips. Additions are not the problem; unrecorded ones are. Creep is also often a scoping failure rather than growth. The work was always this size, and the original description simply did not mention the edges nobody thought to discuss. No change process can catch a change from a baseline that was never written. ## **How to prevent scope creep in practice** At commitment, write an out-of-scope list of three to five items — the adjacent things someone will plausibly ask for — each with the reason it is excluded and what would change that. "Not the historical data migration: the new schema lands next quarter and doing it twice costs more than waiting" is an exclusion that will hold; "out of scope: migration" is not. When a request arrives mid-delivery, check it against the list. If it is listed, the conversation becomes "we decided not to do this, for this reason — has the reason changed?" If it is not listed, it is a new decision: size it, name what it displaces, and if it goes in, record the change as a re-baseline with the original kept alongside. ## **Common mistakes** Treating creep as a discipline problem and asking people to say no more often; without a written baseline there is nothing to say no from. Writing an exhaustive exclusion list — if a demand needs thirty exclusions, it is too big and should be split. And absorbing small additions because each one is "only a day": the whole definition of scope creep is that every single addition was too small to renegotiate. [The essay behind “Scope creep” →](https://www.deliverysheet.com/blog/scope-is-what-youre-not-doing) [Topic: Deciding what to commit to →](https://www.deliverysheet.com/topics/commit) ## **Related terms ** - [Delivery roadmap](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/delivery-roadmap) A delivery roadmap is a time-ordered statement of what an organisation intends to deliver — a communication artifact that sequences intentions, distinct from the commitment record that says what was actually promised, by whom, against what capacity. - [Readiness bar](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/readiness-bar) A readiness bar is the set of things a demand must have before it may be promised: the problem stated apart from the solution, an intended outcome, a named owner, a capacity figure from the delivering team, the dependencies, and the open questions written down. - [RICE scoring](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/rice-scoring) RICE scoring is a prioritisation formula that scores each candidate piece of work as Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort, so that ideas of different sizes can be compared on expected value per unit of effort. This definition comes from building **DeliverySheet** — it takes a vague work request to a clear delivery decision, so the shape, owner, capacity, dependencies and open questions are on the table before anyone commits people or a date. $189/month per workspace, unlimited members. 7-day free trial — card required, cancel before it ends and you're not charged. I answer the support email myself. [**Start 7-day trial **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/login?next=/app) [**All terms **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary) [**See pricing **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/pricing) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DefinedTerm","@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/scope-creep#term","name":"Scope creep","description":"Scope creep is the accumulation of unrecorded additions to a commitment's scope — each too small to renegotiate the promise, together large enough to break it.","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/scope-creep","inDefinedTermSet":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary#termset"} ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#website","@type":"WebSite","description":"Turn raw work requests into structured, decision-ready demands before you commit people, budget, or a date. 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The working defence is not vigilance; it is a dated out-of-scope list. An in-scope list describes an intention, but the explicit record of what you are NOT doing is what holds when someone asks for one more thing in week six — because the answer changes from \"no\" to \"that was decided, and here is the reason\"."}},{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#logo","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"DeliverySheet","contentUrl":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/logo.png","inLanguage":"en","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/logo.png"}]} ``` ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](https://www.deliverysheet.com/sitemap.md) for all pages.