AEC definitions
Scope creep is the gradual addition of work, or of a higher standard, without a corresponding change to the contract. It shows up as informal requests, extra meetings, and 'while you're here' tasks that never become a change order. The cost lands on whoever was too polite to price it.
Definition
Some growth is legitimate change. Scope creep is the part that skips the instrument. A drawing revision with an ASI or a change order is not creep. A pattern of field instructions, unmarked sketches, and raised expectations is. The defense is dull: a scope of work, a rule that extra work needs written authorization, and a log. Calling every owner question creep is as wrong as absorbing real additions. The test is whether the contract documents already required the work.
In depth
If the specifications already required the mockup, performing it is not creep. If they did not, adding it in a meeting is. Read the documents before you label the request.
Small items accumulate. A log of 'minor' favors is the creep, even when no single item felt worth a form.
Thin scope, a client who directs the field, and a team that treats the change process as hostility. Designers who answer 'sure' on site without writing an ASI create work the contractor cannot price and the owner did not approve.
Gold plating is the team's own version: delivering a higher standard than the documents to impress, then discovering it was free.
Field direction that affects cost or time should stop at an RFI, an ASI, a proposal request, or a change directive. Pick the form the contract names. Do the work after it exists, unless the contract allows proceeding.
A proposal request is not an attack. It is how the owner decides with a number in view.
Daily reports, emails, and marked drawings dated when the request was made are the evidence. A claim assembled at the end from memory will be called creep by the other side and a claim by you, with little proof either way.
Time impact belongs in the same record if the extra work affected the critical path.
You can say yes and still price it. The sentence is: we can do that, here is the change form.
Refusing to write it down is what makes the relationship expensive.
Examples
The owner asks the superintendent to add three outlets. The work waits for a proposal request. That is a change, not creep.
Weekly site walks add finishes the documents do not show, and nobody logs them. The cost appears at the end as an argument.
The design team details a custom bench the outline never had, and the contractor builds it without a price. Both sides created creep.
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