scope creep

Scope Creep

My best example for the budget and productivity chapters and scope creep is saving money for my family. I currently have 2 small children and my husband works in construction. I am a teacher. We have a starter farm (52 chickens, discussing the option for 2 pigs, and our immediate family garden (grandpa and grandma)). We also have the start of a Christmas tree farm.

After breaking down our budget, I was shocked to find how much money we were spending on items I could buy once and reuse as well as other house hold goods I could buy. I consider this my pre planning activity (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer & Sutton 2008
). While pregnant last summer, I decided to make our laundry detergent as a try. I had already jumped onto the cloth diapering bandwagon earlier in the year and was loving the savings, so I figured next step. Our garden was starting to grow and chickens were providing eggs, so next step is something else.
I calculated the ingredients and time it took me to make it and I came out with $6.97 for ingredients plus the one time cost of $4 for the bucket. I had a little over $10 in items which was a laundry detergent for the week for me. These were my direct costs and the cost does vary slightly from store to store (Portny et al p 125).
After spending the 30 minutes to make the detergent, (5 gallon bucket worth) I still came out ahead and I haven't looked back. With two small children laundry is never ending as well as a husband who is outside multiple times a day with different dirty clothes items. I found that I could make powder detergent as well as our cloth diaper detergent. The duration of the process was 30-45 minutes and then the next day a stir so it wasn't labor intensive.
My estimation is the cost of the 5 gallons of detergent is about 3 to 5 cents a load depending on the detergent products I need to buy when its time to make. I counted myself direct cost but as minimum wage so $7.80 in Ohio I believe to add to this figure (Portny et al p 125). The duration of the process was 30-45 minutes and then the next day a stir so it wasn't labor intensive (Greer 2010).
This to me was a great budget considering even the cheapest detergent in dollar stores is $5 for 32 loads. Breakdown is not efficient and most people are not aware over 50% of the detergent is usually water.
Depending on the situation the 5 gallons lasts a while 2-3 months sometimes less. This last batch did not last as long, do to the flu and other illnesses circling my house. This is unforeseen circumstances in which everything in a house gets multiple washes weekly. (Stupid weather in Ohio).

After doing this for over six months now I found that local ads are now advertising the items to make the soap now too. I wasn't doing it to make money or anything, my goal was to save money and also take some chemicals out of our house. With two small boys (2 and 5 months) I know that they can be ornery and I would rather have things out of reach and out of the house sooner than later.

I find myself now, looking for scents and other things that really do not save us money. I also cloth diaper for the money and find myself looking at expensive ones that do not help the money.

The original plan was to save money and now we are veering away from the original problem, money. The scope creep veered quickly away and using the idea of analyzing and other steps of ADDIE, the project went way off (Lynch & Roecker 2007).

Resources:

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.

Lynch, M. M., & Roecker, J.(2007).Project managing e-learning: A handbook for successful design, delivery, and management. London: Routledge. Copyright by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC via the Copyright Clearance Center