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Software Engineering vocabulary · Agile and Team Workflow

Scope creep

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, scope creep means: The slow, uncontrolled growth of a project's requirements after work has started, as small extra requests keep being added without changing the deadline or budget.

In Turkish: kapsam kayması, kapsamın kontrolsüz genişlemesi

How it is used

A negative term used by developers and project managers: 'This is scope creep', 'watch out for scope creep'. The usual answer is to write new requests as separate tickets and mark them out of scope for the current sprint.

Example sentences

  1. Adding export to Excel now would be scope creep, so let's put it in the backlog.

  2. The project was two months late, mostly because of scope creep.

Common collocations

  • avoid scope creep
  • watch out for scope creep
  • a case of scope creep
  • manage scope
  • out of scopeNot part of the work that was agreed for a project, sprint or ticket, so it will not be done now, even if it is a good idea.
  • requirementSomething the software must do, or a condition it must meet, as agreed with users, clients or the product team.
  • backlogThe ordered list of work a team has not started yet, such as features, bugs and improvements, with the most important items at the top.
  • stakeholderAny person or group that is affected by a project or has a say in it, such as customers, managers, other teams, the legal team or support.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Agile and Team Workflow

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