Absolutely “getting it in writing” will help…prioritizing is critical too.

Remember that the project’s goal is to ultimately to deliver “value to the customer”…..so investigate that potential value they are bringing up. Bring the requester into a room with the team and have them explain WHY they want this feature. Have them help you create a User Story “together”….and then make them do estimating with the theam by breaking the Feature/User-Story down into tasks that the team will estimate for work. You don’t really know the impact until you do this…..neither does the customer.

Then talk about the implecations of adding the feature: Schedule hit, Budget increases, and Resources are needed longer. Someone has to approve those changes….so look to your change control process, lean on it, it can be your friend. Or maybe lower priority features will drop off.

Scope ultimately changes on every project, unless it is a very short short short one.

I’m sorry you have one of those “controlling” sponsors – that wants to be the Sponsor & PM & Tech Advisor & ___________. And although they are overloaded with work – they will never admit it to anyone.

I understand how “frustrating” is probably a nice way of saying how you really feel. You have got to talk to your sponsor as the PM 1 on 1, and help them understand the impact of their actions. Tell them how they are impacting $budge, Schedule, Scope, the Team, etc. (ie. When I don’t get a call back or response from you – this prevents me from ________________ and ultimately affects the project )

Take all emotion out of it – just talk facts. And realize that if they refuse to change, then you get to decide if you want to work there any longer or with this sponsor.

It comes down to your relationship with your sponsor. Some refuse to work with you. Ask him/her what they expect your job to be on the team – maybe they just want a secretary, someone to take notes, someone to fillout template & track budget. Ask them.

I’ve been at companies where the PMO clearly told the Sponsor their job & how the PM fit in and their job And a few sponsors ignored them completely. The PMO couldn’t do a thing about it becuase the sponsor was buddies with the CIO. So guess what ? You can try talking about how they are impacting the team, but more than likely you will be ignored too. Then you get to decide what you are going to do. Is it worth it to you to go thru that? I say try different things – they might work and you will learn some things I bet. Don’t throw in the towel too soon – use it as an lab to try thing out.

I’m happy to talk if you like. Email me at donna@donnaAreed.com.

–Donna

In future I either, refuse to work on any of her projects or any other suggestions would be gratefully received.

Agile is great for this situation, which allows NEW requirements or features to be added to what I call the “wish list” (Agile calls it the backlog). The way we deal with this is typically at the end of an iteration/phase we are working on where we look to the backlog and define what the next phase of work will consist of — you involve the customer and allow them to determine the value of this new scope — and the team informs the customer of the impact that this new scope will have on the project. If the customer/sponsor OKs the impact – then that’s all you need. It is all about them anyways – isn’t it?

Now I admit there are all kinds of twists to this that might occur – one of the most common I see is where the sponsor is not the one holding the purse strings (controlling budget for project) – so you have got to get the budget approvers involved – where the sponsor typially has to “justify” their NEW requests to this committee before they are approved as an addition to the backlog. As the PM of the project – you will typically work very closely with the sponsor to help them present the justification to the budgeting committee ! Often having to determine the budget impact estimatation to the committee.

Do you have a specific situation in mind – I’m happy to talk through it with you.
I’d love to hear how you deal with this situation as well – we all learn from one another ! Thanks

Thanks for adding this difficult, but common situation that happens quite a bit ! (at least in my experience it happens on almost every project that lasts for more than a week !!)