What is the difference between Scope Creep and Gold Plating?

Harwinder

Hello everyone,

There's a subtle difference between Scope Creep and Gold Plating, but many people seem to miss it.

The PMBOK® Guide, Fifth Edition defines Scope Creep as:

The uncontrolled expansion to product or project scope without adjustments to time, cost, and resources.

Before I share my thoughts on the difference, I invite the community members to share their views on this topic. Over to you guys ...

Good luck.

hi2shrads

Scope Creep - Mostly it will occur because of customer, stakeholder's demands for new things, changes
e.g. In any software project, if customer asks for more columns in Report which is actually requiring process level change or changes in database table structure. This will also require changes in any of the coding , development of queries for reports, this will also lead to changes in format of report. So PM or Project Team is getting into loop of doing uncontrolled changes which is affecting time, cost and resource.

Gold Plating - without Stakeholder/customer asking for anything, project team and /or PM is giving them by assuming it will be beneficial for them though it has not been asked.
Report has been developed as per specification mentioned in Project Scope document
but project team is doing extra efforts in giving outstanding visuals for this report which is not budgeted, not asked but customer may/may not like it.

Harwinder, pls correct me if I am wrong.

Harwinder

@hi2shrads

Nice explanation with a good example!

Harwinder

In simple terms:

Scope Creep - Extra scope is added to the project without considering the impact of change on time, cost, quality, risks etc. Scope Baseline is "changed".

Gold Plating - The team provides extras over and above the scope baseline. Scope Baseline remains "unchanged".

Other thoughts?

Suyog

In which process Scope Creep can be found and control Vs in which process gold plating in found and controlled ?

Correct me if I am wrong , Scope Creep can be found and controlled in Quality control & Gold Planting is found in Quality Assurance & Validate Scope .

Your thoughts

Harwinder

Generally speaking, Scope Creep and Gold Plating occur during project execution and detecting them is part of M&C. The exact processes in which they are detected is not defined anywhere and not relevant for the exam.