During the RFP process, the lead design professional often sells itself and its consultants as a cohesive team. The lead designer is frequently a good client and someone you work with often. Everyone wants to be a team player, right? Sometimes by helping one of your team members, you can suffer from scope creep.
Assume for example, that you have been hired as the geotechnical engineering consultant for a project. Geotechnical engineers are almost always careful to submit written proposals for their work that include their standard detailed terms and conditions. After you have issued your geotechnical report regarding conditions at the site (which was your intended scope of work), it is not unusual to receive questions from the structural engineer about the report. What becomes more problematic is when the structural engineer asks questions about more than the report and asks for opinions regarding the structural design or asks for a review of his calculation methodology. You want to be helpful, and you offer your opinions and review emailed calculations. By doing so, you have become entangled in the structural design and have exposed yourself to potential liability should the structural design prove flawed.
Here are three ways to avoid scope creep:
- Fully identify what your role on the project will be and what the roles of other project participants will include upfront. Consider whether there are any scope gaps which might need to be filled by someone as the project progresses.
- Make sure your scope of work is detailed and clear. “Preparing structural design for the Project” is not detailed. Specify exactly the deliverables your client will be receiving from you.
- Do not offer opinions outside of your discipline, even if it is something that you are familiar with. Even though you want to be a team player and you may be friends with the project engineer for another discipline, you should not be sucked into performing work outside of your scope of expertise and offering your opinions about their work.