Scope Creep Examples — Web development
A feature that was never in the SOW
The SOW scoped a checkout flow with card payments. The client asks for a saved-payment-methods feature — never discussed, never priced.
The SOW's feature list is specific: cart, one-time card checkout via the payment processor, order confirmation email. During a sprint demo, the client asks whether returning customers can save a card on file for next time — reasonable from a UX standpoint, but it's a genuinely different feature (tokenized storage, a saved-methods UI, additional PCI-scope considerations) that was never in the SOW's feature list and never priced into the estimate.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Out-of-scope clause→ — The mechanism for flagging that a request, however reasonable, sits outside what the SOW actually scoped.
Suggested change-order wording
Suggested change-order wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Saved payment methods weren't in the SOW's feature list — the checkout flow we scoped is one-time card entry only. It's a good idea for a v2, but it touches payment-token storage and PCI scope, so it needs its own estimate rather than being folded into the current sprint. I'll put together a scoped proposal for it separately.
How this usually resolves
Flagging the compliance angle (PCI scope) alongside the scope angle tends to land well — it reframes the ask from "just add a feature" to "this needs its own careful scoping," which most clients accept without pushback once they understand why it can't just be squeezed into the current sprint.
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