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RE: Questions - Going from Hourly to Per Project Basis
Subject:RE: Questions - Going from Hourly to Per Project Basis From:"Sharon Burton-Hardin" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 1 Oct 2003 09:53:11 -0700
Project managers have budgets. They get money to do a project. Billing
hourly with no apparent cap is insane in this environment. They cannot even
estimate the total cost, much less get approval for the cost. What do they
do, submit a cost estimate for "a gob of money" for the docs? How does
accounting cut a purchase order for "a gob of money"? It isn't a convenient
straw man, it is the nature of running a business and even if you are just
an independent contractor, you are running a business.
It isn't a project management issue, you have to know how much something
costs when you buy it. Just like when you hire a plumber to fix something,
you want to know what this is going to cost before the project starts.
Otherwise, it just costs "gobs of money" and that makes you very unhappy. It
does me, at least. I yell in this case.
If the client stops working on our part of the project and delays things
beyond our control, we roll to the clause of the contract that says
something like "Delays will add to the cost of the project." And then I
invoke that clause, after telling them this is going to happen, and they get
billed some weekly amount over the original total cost of the project until
they start doing what they agreed contractually to do. That usually moves
things right along. It costs the client money with no result for spending
that money. And we do have a contract that details what they do and what we
do. Not doing what they agreed to is technically violating the contract.
-----Original Message-----
"Sharon Burton-Hardin" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com> wrote in message news:214977 -at- techwr-l -dot- -dot- -dot-
>
> Since about April 2001, we have had no client want an hourly project. I
> don't blame them. Hourly projects seem to just go on and an with no end in
> sight. They seem to bleed money. How do you plan your project budget in
this
> case?
>
I infer from a statement such as this that problems exist with management of
the projects, not that they are billed hourly. Hourly billig is thus a
convenient straw man.
And then, what do you do in a flat-rate project when the schedule slips by 2
months, yet there's no additional TW work? All of a sudden you're either
sitting idle because you have your work done, yet you're committed to that
company, or you're waiting for information that has been delayed because of
the schedule slip, and you're still committed to the contract.
Are any of the other engineers--programmers, industrial, design, QA, etc.,
being asked the same thing?
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