The Scope Creep Kraken
Why not? It'll only take ten minutes.
The project begins with a real goal and a sensible one. Then someone discovers that the model can produce a decent draft of an adjacent feature in under a minute, and the mood in the room changes. AI broke the throttle that used to keep scope creep in check.
- Symptom
- Sprints that started focused and ended sprawling. 'While we're at it' added by the model in a single chat turn. Surface area you didn't ask for and now have to maintain.
- Why it matters
- Scope creep used to fight friction. AI removed the friction without adding any judgment. The result is teams shipping more — and owning much more — than they ever decided to.
- What the chapter gives you
- How to recognize the Kraken in planning, the prompts and policies that keep AI inside the original goal, and the questions that cut adjacent work back to size.
From Volume 1 of The AI Developer's Field Guide
Read the full chapter in The AI Developer's Field Guide.
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