Feature Creep

Feature creep or Scope creep is a tendency for system requirements to increase during development beyond those originally foreseen, leading to features that weren't originally planned and resulting risk to product quality or schedule. Feature creep may be driven by a client's growing "wish list" or by developers themselves as they see opportunity for improving the product.

As the various stages of development pass, there is a temptation to change, add, or redact particular requirements of the system thus changing the system from the originally stated requirements.

Feature creep can add to and/or enhance a project but usually (when not managed) results in competing features and excessive resources being drained to pursue unrequired or false requirements.

This risks the overall project if not identified and dealt with appropriately. Strict adherance to CM processes and baselining can help overcome this risk.