How to handle scope creep in your projects

 You think, do I just let this build and build and build and build until the website project is almost unrecognizable from what you started with? Or do I push back on it and risk the client canceling the project and not getting paid?

Hi, I’m Holly. I’m from Websites Made Simple. I am a website designer and developer website mentor, and I am here to help you have a web design career that you absolutely love without having issues with clients or feeling like this is all getting a little bit much. So today we are talking about scope creep because show me a website designer who hasn’t had a client push the scope up.

Over and over again, and it can be a real thing from. I can, I’ve just seen this on someone else’s website and I really like it. It could be a really small design change to a, oh, did you spot that calculator on someone’s website? I really liked that. Could you build that for me? And there are, there are a few issues with scope creep here.

One is the, the client’s not really having a healthy respect for your boundaries. Once you’ve started the web design project, your boundary is the. The project details that you’ve already carved out together, that’s what’s being built. Not, oh, I saw this on my friend’s website. Or when you get to, you know, the first draft stage them asking, you know, the neighbor and the postman and their friend and their brother-in-law and you know, that sort of thing to view the website.

It is not that professional. Kind of boundary thing, and that’s one of the issues that we have in the web design space. Full stop, is with so many web designers being self-taught, they haven’t been taught the basis of business. And when I say business, I mean web design business, but also with all of those really pesky adverts for free tools here, do your website for free with Wix, with Squarespace, with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know what I mean is that it really devalues or it gives this message of devaluing the actual job of web design as well. And it only takes a couple of clients who do this big scope creep to really rock your. Stability within the web design world because one of the issues with scope creep is that it means that the website takes longer to build.

And the longer you are building this website, it means the longer and further away you are from building your next website, marketing for your next website being paid on your next website. And if you followed me for a while, you’ll know that I’m really big on process. I’m really big on boundaries. And if this is something that you struggle with, I actually have my web designers contract pack, which just maps all of this out for you and their UK law compliant contracts and processes and systems and stuff that you can apply into your business today as well.

So if you feel like. Oh, it sounds great Holly, but I just dunno where I would begin with this. Then just go to the website websites made simple.co uk and you can pick up a copy of the Web Designs contract pack. It’s got everything in there and it will help you hold those clients to accountability to the scope of the project and you will be brilliant.

So let’s assume you’ve already sent out your contract, so we can’t rescue it with the web designer’s contract bag, but we can get it for next time. Um, let’s assume that we are there and you, the other issue that you can have with scope creep here is that it can break down the relationship that you have with the client as well, because.

When clients come back and they’re like, oh, can you just add this in? Oh, I’ll send this page by page to you. Oh, I’ll do this, that, and the other. And it’s like that tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. They never get to sign out of like their web design. Thinking the build, anything like that. And actually, I mean, other than you’ve got the skills to build this website for them.

Part of handing over the website is that they don’t have to think about it. You know, they’ve already had to think about and okay. The branding and the copywriting and the images that go on the site. They don’t need to be there in the weeds with you, you know, line by line of code by code. They really don’t, they, you know, what we really want, and again, I go through this with my processes, is we want to be able to each week give them an update and say, Hey, this is what your website looks like now.

And for them to be like really surprised and delighted by it, and if they’re constantly on email to you and they’re not switching off from this website. Site to build, then they’re gonna start feeling a bit rubbish about it. And it just think if you have anything in your life where you, you’re just constantly being tapped out by it.

And, you know, it could be anything. For me, it’s school, emails. I have three children and you know, it’s like tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Until like the temptations just to not really want to read any of them. And you want people to come away with a really positive. Positive, um, experience of working with you.

And a scope creep doesn’t give that. So the first thing that I do with the how to handle this is when I, um, first introduce myself to people and we agree the website build, I immediately tell them what they can expect the process to be, that I will contact them each week, that they will usually hear from me on a Friday.

That they’ll have a website walkthrough each week in their, of our progress in their inbox, and that they should email me back with any feedback and I’ll take that on board and they’ll see that the following week and the next week’s development. And of course, they’re welcome to email me in between. But if I have a client who is doing that kind of.

Scope creepy thing, and they’re emailing quite a lot. What I will then try and do is bundle their emails, and it can be really tempting to like email back after each email and you know, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And it just drains your energy and it’s going to leave both of you feeling really bad as well.

So if you have someone who you notice that they’re emailing like three or four times a day, just set a time of day, once a day where you will read their emails and respond to their emails. Or even if you read their emails earlier, that you will respond to them and it will feel better for the client. It because you can give a more measured response because you’re not replying on the fly each time, and it also gives you that opportunity just to step back and have a think about it.

It’s like. I have a three hour rule, and if I receive an email that I don’t really want to receive for whatever reason, and this applies to my personal life as well, I leave at three hours before I respond, even if I know what my response is gonna be. And often in that three hour reflection time, I might change my response, or it might just mean that I take the.

Energy, you know that initial energy when you feel a bit stung and stuff, it takes that energy out of it, and then I can come back to it and you can just feel, even if I’m using almost exactly the same words, it just feels less inflammatory and stuff like that. So if you’ve got a scope creeper. Then, um, go.

That’s your first portal call is to do once a day emailing with them. And then the next one is if they are saying, I’d really like this, I’d really like that. I don’t really like to tell people no. And it’s not that I’m saying no because of people pleasing and though I can fall into people pleasing, it’s more because if someone’s got a fixed idea for a website or something they really want for their website and they’re paying quite a lot of money for it as well.

They don’t wanna be told no, and I don’t want them feeling like they’re having kind of an incomplete website project or you know that they’re getting something, but it’s not really what they want or whatever else. So I tend to always say yes. However, I don’t say, yeah, I’ll get on that. I say some, yeah, you know, that sounds great.

Do you have an example of what you would like, blah, blah, blah. And then I’ll say to them as this wasn’t factored in the original scope of the project. I will have to look at adding this on, and I, I think that it’s going to cost this much, or I’m quoting this much for it, which will be added to the end invoice, the final invoice.

It will also take me an additional week or two weeks, so our timescale will now have moved from here to here, and the pricing is from here to here. And usually that’s enough for a client to kind of hold back and say, oh, actually don’t worry about it. It was just an idea. And when you do that, it also means that they get really settled back into the project that they had set with you as well.

So they start feeling good about the project again. So rather than feeling like, oh, it’s a bit incomplete, or something like that, they feel like, oh no, it’s really good. And yeah, that calculator looks cool on the other site, but you know, I, I’m really good with where I’m at. And if it’s a case of they say, yeah, I’m happy to pay that, and I’m happy for the time scales, then happy days really because they’re getting what they want.

They’re happy to pay for it. They’re respecting your boundaries and you get paid more money for it. Now, something that you might struggle with here is they might ask for something which is outside of your skillset. And there’s a couple of ways to handle this. The first one, and the one I would recommend the most is to collaborate, is to find someone who can do that for you.

Find out what their hourly rate is, and it’s okay to say to a client as well, that sounds like a great idea. I’m going to need to bring another developer on board just to code that bit of it. I’m gonna go away and speak to some developers I know. If you don’t know any right now, just go onto LinkedIn.

You’ll find some really good ones. Come to me. I can give you a recommendation. Um. And I’m gonna come back to you with a timescale and a price for this project. And again, once they realize that a timescale and a price is going to be included in this, they might say, oh no, don’t worry about it. But they might say, yeah, that’s great.

I look forward to hearing from you. And there will be someone out there within your budget who will be able to do this with you, and you can make such nice. Um, meetings here. I’ve met some great developers who have, you know, kind of got me outta something, which is just a little bit more, I’m more of the design than the technical side.

Well, more design and business running than technical side. So don’t be afraid to do that, uh, because as I say, it can be a really. Really good way of doing it. And another way to do it is to say, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. And yeah, I think that that’s gonna work brilliantly on the website.

I’m gonna be honest, that doesn’t lie within my skillset, but what I can do is I can finish up the design and everything as we agreed and when the project’s done, I can hand this over to another developer who can, you know, just do that final. Stage for you? Would you like me to find a developer or did you have someone in mind?

And again, it is, you know, in none of these cases are we saying no, you know, we are saying, yeah, that’s great. You know, great idea. And you know, every idea, like every, you know, they say for every action there is a reaction. And this is the case. Like, for everything that they want, every request they make, there is a solution.

And it’s, you know, involving those in those, them in those decisions. Because when you give them. That solution, you know, and they get to be a part of it, then they real really feel like they’ve got a good grip on it and it makes the project work really well. So there we have it. It’s a bit of a quicker episode for me today, but I hope you found it useful.

I would love to hear your experiences of scope creep. And I have to say I did put a shout out on LinkedIn about this and I might do a bonus episode and, uh, read out some of the scope creep stuff that we’ve had because it’s really, really funny. And if you want to be involved in that, you can look me up on LinkedIn.

I’m Holly c Christie, or um, go to websites made simple.co uk. Fill out the get in touch form. You can even pop a voice note in there. I’d love to hear from you. I would love to hear like your wildest scope creep stories or just your most regular scope creep stories as well. Ones where it’s like, oh God, they just keep asking for, you know, colored separators.

Put everywhere. Or, you know, clients continually do this, that, or the other because hey, we’re all in it together. And, uh, if you can’t laugh, then what can you do? That’s all from me and I will see you again next episode.