David A. Fields Consulting Group Is Scope Creep Always Bad for Your Consulting Firm? (When to Say Yes and How to Say No)
Picture yourself presenting a project’s final deliverable to your client.
The meeting is swimming along smoothly and you’re basking in the warm glow of positive feedback.
Then, your client asks, “Champ, could you slice the data one more way so we can see impact by geographic area?”
Setting aside your confusion over a client calling you Champ…
… do you run the extra analysis or not?
Scenario #1 (continued)
Since the client loved your final presentation, he has another request: “Can you fly out again to present to the entire executive team?”
Your team of three would lose a full day for the extra presentation.
Do you fly or stay home?
We’ll assume you chose to fly, and, of course, the executive team loves your presentation too. So…
“Champ,” your client gushes, “the executive team wants you to come out one more time to present to the Board.”
Is Champ a term of respect or has the client forgotten your name?
Either way, do you fly or stay home?
Scenario #2
You’re at a conference assessing four competitors for your client when your iPhone buzzes. It’s your client. “I see competitor #5 is at the conference too. Can you assess them also since you’re there already?”
Do you or don’t you add the fifth competitive assessment?
Scenario #3
You’ve launched the final design for your client on a project that already took far more time and effort than you expected.
The client calls and you immediately mention that you’re not Champ. Puzzled, she continues, “Can you make one tweak to the design? It should take you less than five minutes.”
If she’s right that it would take very little time, do you tweak or not?
What if it would take two hours?
Do you tweak or not?
What if she calls again two weeks later with a similar request?
Grant her request or say no?
Scenario #4
Your client loves the materials you’ve provided for her senior team. She asks whether she can make copies for the next level down.
Grant permission or not?
Ugh, Scope Creep!
Scope creep is insidious and frustrating.
Your consulting firm is paid for your skills, expertise, and the value you provide.
Presumably you agreed with your client on a scope of work and a commensurate fee.
Now they want more work but aren’t offering more remuneration.
Seems unfair. What do you do?
An Ounce of Prevention vs. a Ton of Grief
Your best defense against scope creep occurs before you submit your proposal.
- Discuss common and obvious scope creep possibilities in advance. If you know that other competitors may attend the conference or that design tweaks can go on forever, raise those scenarios with your prospect before you write the proposal.
- In your proposal, clearly articulate in each alternative what’s included and what’s not included.
- Make important boundaries explicit. For instance, dissemination of your IP, duration of access to you, the definition of the subject of your work, etc.
- Set high fees. High margins make it easy to say yes to most requests (as long as they’re not asking for work they declined during negotiations).
The Rule of 10s
If project boundaries are fuzzy, consider offering, gratis, up to 10% more effort that produces at least 10% more value for the client.
Measuring effort and value can be subjective, but the Rule of 10s gives you guidance.
There’s a lot of information carried in that chart, so sit with it for a minute.
Requests that produce a ton of value for the client and take little effort from you are an obvious Yes.
The more effort a client request requires, the more value it has to deliver to warrant free effort.
And in no case do you let scope creep beyond 10%.
Say “No” Gracefully
Even your “No” should sound like “Yes.”
“Yes, we can absolutely do that for you. Of course, we’ll need to expand our relationship (or the engagement) a bit.”
Another graceful way to say no is shifting the conundrum to your client.
“Since your request is outside the scope of the current engagement, how would you like to structure it so that you get this important, additional value, and we are compensated for generating that extra value?”
Accept Your Decision
If you say Yes, don’t begrudge the client.
Perform the work happily, with your usual excellence, and without a backward glance.
It was your decision to accede to the additional request, so don’t blame it on your client.
Where do you draw the line on scope creep, and how do you deal with your clients’ requests for more, more, more?
Text and images are © 2026 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
When I worked in software development, my internal clients often ask for something they forgot.
“Can you just add this functionality?” The key word is “just.”
“We can do that if you don’t mind pushing the release date by (however many days or weeks or months it would take.)”
That usually shut them up.
Or “We could schedule that for the next enhancement cycle.”
This is the kind of “Yes and…” response that seems to work for me.
Exactly, Jay. Yes, you can accommodate their request and yes, there are also implications (e.g., time, cost).
Thank you for sharing the example from your experience!
The rule of 10 graph is a great addition to any contract – it pretty much covers a discussion around any request! Thank you
You’re right, Nick. While most consultants don’t bring up the Rule of 10s explicitly with their clients (probably out of fear of encouraging 10% scope creep), discussing it isn’t a bad idea. After all, we do want to complete work that adds substantially more value. Providing exceptional value is our path to follow-on work and referrals.
I appreciate your adding that idea, Nick!
Beautifully articulated David. As you say, brutal clarity at the outset always saves disappointment down the line.
Unfortunately consultants starting out generally have to experience scope creep to be able to create a better proposal next time, so this article will help guide those conversations that would otherwise be very uncomfortable!
Many of us consultants learn the hard way, Anneve. Fortunately, in this business, most mistakes only bruise our egos or wallets, nothing worse. Like you, though, I hope this article helps some hard-headed consultants climb the learning curve faster and with less pain.
Thanks for jumping into the conversation. 😊
We do well-defined, fixed-price ERP replacement projects. When you do the same project repeatedly for different clients, you learn what comes up. So I list those items as options in the project proposal, but they aren’t selected so they don’t inflate the fee. However, if a client later wants that option, I execute a change order, they sign it, and that solves the problem for us.
This only works when you can define the project properly up front and can anticipate the scope creep. It also means you must systematize your consulting offering, which is another discussion.
Well said, Chris. Knowing your craft and developing a few Core Offerings that constitute the lion’s share of your revenue will cut down on the instances of scope creep. Your process is exactly right, and I appreciate your sharing it for other readers to learn from.