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Glossary
What is scope creep?
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".
Related terms
- Commitment exception — A recorded justification required to commit to work that is not yet decision-ready, naming why it is early, what is still unknown, who accepts the risk, and what condition would change the decision.
- Delivery governance — The practice of deciding what to commit to — establishing value, ownership, capacity, dependencies and open questions before people, budget or a date are promised.
- Decision-ready demand — A demand that can responsibly be committed to: the problem stated apart from the proposed solution, an intended outcome, a named owner, a first capacity figure, the dependencies, and the open questions written down as unknowns.
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.