scope-creep-guard

Compare the request against the agreed project goal, success criteria, and non-goals. If it is necessary to achieve the stated outcome it is required; if it merely improves the outcome it is justified or deferred; if it conflicts with non-goals it is rejected.

Establish a decision baseline of goal, users, scope, and constraints, then normalize each proposal, test goal alignment and necessity, and classify each as required, justified, deferred, or rejected with cited evidence and a decision consequence.

Deferred items may be valuable but lack current evidence or capacity, so they get a concrete revisit trigger or target phase. Rejected items conflict with the goal, duplicate existing capability, or carry disproportionate cost, and need a stated exclusion reason.

Avoid it when the project goal is too vague to serve as a baseline, when defining an MVP from scratch, when ranking already-approved work, or when the task is estimation or implementation rather than scope decision-making.

No. A low-priority mandatory requirement remains required; deferring baseline accessibility, security, or correctness obligations is not allowed. If a fixed deadline conflicts with required work, state which constraint, deliverable, or goal must change.