Is Scope Creep Costing Your A&E Firm Thousands? Here Are 3 Ways to Take Back Control

Every A&E firm has heard it: “Can we just add this in?” And because we’re all wired to serve the client, the answer is usually yes. But over time, those “small” changes start to snowball — taking up extra hours, consuming budget, and slowly eroding your margin. 

It's Just A Small Change... Until it Isn't 

This isn’t just a project management issue — it’s a profitability one. And most PMs don’t even realize it’s happening until the job is closed and the damage is done. 

Why Scope Creep Hurts More Than You Think

Scope creep is silent, systemic, and expensive. It leads to: 

• Burned-out teams working beyond budget 

• Projects that look successful from a deliverables perspective — but lose money 

• Leadership doubting PMs, and PMs feeling micromanaged and unsuccessful 

And worst of all, the root causes usually go unaddressed. 

The Root Problem: No One Owns Change Management

In our work with A&E firms, we often find scope creep is a cultural issue, not a technical one. It’s baked into how teams are incentivized and how they communicate. 

Most firms don’t have a consistent way to: 

• Evaluate the financial impact of requested changes 

• Escalate change orders for client approval 

• Track budget changes at the task level in real time 

Without this, PMs are left guessing — and margins suffer. 

The Scope Creep Solution for A&E Firms

We help firms operationalize scope management. That means: 

• Training PMs to recognize and document change requests—early 

• Building workflows that route requests for changes through proper approvals 

• Connecting those changes to budgets, invoices, and time entries in real time 

It’s not about saying no to clients — it’s about saying yes with clarity. 

If You Use BQE CORE: Here Are Three Ways to Take Back Control

BQE CORE has strong capabilities for flagging and managing scope creep—if configured and used with the right processes. Here’s how we help: 

• Change Order Templates:
  We help firms build templates for change requests that link directly to budgets and task codes so that PMs can act quickly with minimal admin overhead. 

• Budget Tracking by Phase:
  BQE CORE lets you monitor budget consumption at both the project and phase levels. We help configure alerts and dashboards to catch overages before they become problems. 

• Time Allocation Audits:
  We use BQE CORE’s time entry data to spot scope drift—e.g., when team members are logging hours to phases or projects that should be complete. 

Example: A Firm That Drew the Line at Scope Creep: — And Won  

One 40-person civil engineering firm we worked with was quietly losing margin across dozens of projects. By implementing change tracking and using BQE CORE to tie those changes to financial impact, they recovered over $180,000 in missed change orders in a single year. 

Actionable Takeaways for A&E Firms: 

• Review your last 10 projects. How many had undocumented changes? 

• Create a simple intake form for change order requests — and see if it can be automated. 

• Train your PMs on the phrase: “Happy to make that change—let me just route it through our approval process.” 

Next Steps

Scope creep isn’t a client problem — it’s a system problem. But it’s fixable. You don’t need to micromanage your teams — you need to give them tools and structure that protect their time and your bottom line.