Janet is the project manager of the NHQ Project for her company. Janet is nearly done leading the project and there have been no cost or schedule overruns in the development of the new software for…

Scope creep refers to uncontrolled, gradual expansion of project scope - usually driven by stakeholder requests that bypass the formal change control process, not by a PM's unilateral decision to spend leftover budget.

Gold plating is the project management anti-pattern where the team voluntarily adds features, enhancements, or functionality that the customer never requested, typically justified by available budget or time. In this scenario Janet directs spending of $75,000 on unsolicited features, which is the textbook definition of gold plating. PMBOK discourages this practice because it introduces unvalidated scope, potential defects, and misaligned value delivery.

Change management is the formal process used to evaluate, approve, and implement changes to project scope, schedule, or cost; Janet is not using any formal change process here.

Value added change is not a standard PMI or PMBOK term for this type of behavior, and adding unsolicited features does not inherently deliver verified customer value.