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Every independent learns this lesson, hopefully at the beginning of the
career. I learned it early on when a flat rate project I was getting 3k for
turned into a nightmare that never ended - but we have just these few more
changes, just a few more, these are all, just these, but a few more. Since I
subbed that project out, I paid another 3k to the writer for that project.
In other words, I paid my writer 6k to write docs for which I get 3k. I
didn't know or when to invoke the "change of scope" talk.
That hurt a lot. I have friends who paid even more for that particular
business seminar. You HAVE to let the client know as SOON as the out of
scope changes are requested. Not after. Then get approval for those changes
and the additional cost BEFORE you make them, including a means to bill
against, like a PO number.
I never make that mistake now. I make other, new ones, but I learned that
one early. That business class cost 6k and I got my money's worth!
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan W. Gallagher [mailto:sgallagher5 -at- cox -dot- net]
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 6:38 PM
To: Sharon Burton-Hardin; TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Estimating a Project
Too true, Sharon!
I had a client who kindly helped me learn this lesson early! ;-)
My skills as project manager and contract writer are not always
what they should be, even tho I can pretty much guess right-on
about how long it'll take me to write the stuff in the first
place. I very quickly let that client send me *way* too many
changes. The project grew from "edit and reformat 100 pages to
write another 50 pages of missing information, too" and he still
wasn't satisfied! I'll never get any repeat business from him; it
was a learning experience.
I naively expected the client to know how to do this -- document
a software app -- but he didn't have a clue. I like to think I'm
better at specifying the client's responsibilities and how much
change can cost, but I know I'm not good enough.
It isn't how long it takes you to write stuff you have to estimate.
You also have to estimate how flakey the client is WRT specifying
needs and wants (I swear there's no missing info, it's all there!
just an edit..." HA!) on that side and how well/poorly you communicate
your needs/wants (please review...) and just what exactly "out of scope"
means.
-Sue Gallagher
At 06:12 PM 3/31/2003 -0800, Sharon Burton-Hardin wrote:
>Estimating projects is in and of itself an art. Some people can and some
>cannot.
>
>...
>
>I had the icky conversation today about "out of scope changes" and
explained
>how that works. It is a different, much higher, hourly than I would
normally
>charge, simply to stop these sorts of changes at this part of the project.
>They fainted. I agreed this was costly. It is unfortunate that they really
>want these changes but they are going to cost almost 10% of the total
>project. They agreed, because they want those changes. I suggested that in
>the future, they get the entire sign off team involved at the beginning of
>the review process. They seemed puzzled and a little defensive.
>
>They are VERY unhappy at the time they will take, because we are already
>over schedule, in large part because of those 4 rounds of edits we were
>never scheduled for. But there they are. It all takes time. And time costs
>money.
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