Giving clients stupid advice
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Regarding the 7 dirty consultant tricks[^] article from the CP newsletter. The first point is that consultants bump up the bill "due to scope change and 'customization.'" and the recommendation is "Build some flexibility into your [proposal]"..."There should be an amount of leeway in the requirements/scope to avoid the 'out of scope' clause being used and additional charges" What complete and utter nonsense. I may be new to this freelance game but if you want an up front quote and your proposal contains the slightest bit of "leeway" on the deliverables I'll bill you hourly to do a proper investigation and rewrite you a nice tight spec that states exactly what you are going to get. No way I'm signing any contract with "leeway" in it. Save yourself some time and write a clear spec to begin with. Think it's time for a new article: 7 dirty client tricks and how to avoid them. Number 1 - Clients who write specs with leeway in them to get you to bid low thinking it's a simple project then bumping in loads of complex change requests and expect them for free.
Simon [Need a software dev?]
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Regarding the 7 dirty consultant tricks[^] article from the CP newsletter. The first point is that consultants bump up the bill "due to scope change and 'customization.'" and the recommendation is "Build some flexibility into your [proposal]"..."There should be an amount of leeway in the requirements/scope to avoid the 'out of scope' clause being used and additional charges" What complete and utter nonsense. I may be new to this freelance game but if you want an up front quote and your proposal contains the slightest bit of "leeway" on the deliverables I'll bill you hourly to do a proper investigation and rewrite you a nice tight spec that states exactly what you are going to get. No way I'm signing any contract with "leeway" in it. Save yourself some time and write a clear spec to begin with. Think it's time for a new article: 7 dirty client tricks and how to avoid them. Number 1 - Clients who write specs with leeway in them to get you to bid low thinking it's a simple project then bumping in loads of complex change requests and expect them for free.
Simon [Need a software dev?]
I'm different - I build some leeway into the original quote, then allow some changes during the project lifecycle. You know and I know things will change. This way, I can let the customer get flexibility for no apparent additional cost, and it is a lot easier to get paid extra for significant changes. If you charge for every little thing, then the customer feels ripped off, and may not come back next time. Not saying your way is wrong, but it works for me...
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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I'm different - I build some leeway into the original quote, then allow some changes during the project lifecycle. You know and I know things will change. This way, I can let the customer get flexibility for no apparent additional cost, and it is a lot easier to get paid extra for significant changes. If you charge for every little thing, then the customer feels ripped off, and may not come back next time. Not saying your way is wrong, but it works for me...
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
That's fine when you (as the consultant) control the leeway, you can be flexible but you know when it starts to grow into scope creep and you can draw a line and you have a clear agreed spec to back you up. I think your way sounds totally reasonable, but this article recommends that the client inserts some leeway into the spec. That just sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
Simon [Need a software dev?]
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Regarding the 7 dirty consultant tricks[^] article from the CP newsletter. The first point is that consultants bump up the bill "due to scope change and 'customization.'" and the recommendation is "Build some flexibility into your [proposal]"..."There should be an amount of leeway in the requirements/scope to avoid the 'out of scope' clause being used and additional charges" What complete and utter nonsense. I may be new to this freelance game but if you want an up front quote and your proposal contains the slightest bit of "leeway" on the deliverables I'll bill you hourly to do a proper investigation and rewrite you a nice tight spec that states exactly what you are going to get. No way I'm signing any contract with "leeway" in it. Save yourself some time and write a clear spec to begin with. Think it's time for a new article: 7 dirty client tricks and how to avoid them. Number 1 - Clients who write specs with leeway in them to get you to bid low thinking it's a simple project then bumping in loads of complex change requests and expect them for free.
Simon [Need a software dev?]
What really irks me is the article failed to mention the biggest lie of them all (no doubt because their experts worked for such companies) and that is companies that purport to be consulting companies are in actuality staffing companies. Even IBM has gone to the staffing model of consulting.
Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. I also do Android Programming as I find it a refreshing break from the MS. "And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs" -- Robert Frost
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Regarding the 7 dirty consultant tricks[^] article from the CP newsletter. The first point is that consultants bump up the bill "due to scope change and 'customization.'" and the recommendation is "Build some flexibility into your [proposal]"..."There should be an amount of leeway in the requirements/scope to avoid the 'out of scope' clause being used and additional charges" What complete and utter nonsense. I may be new to this freelance game but if you want an up front quote and your proposal contains the slightest bit of "leeway" on the deliverables I'll bill you hourly to do a proper investigation and rewrite you a nice tight spec that states exactly what you are going to get. No way I'm signing any contract with "leeway" in it. Save yourself some time and write a clear spec to begin with. Think it's time for a new article: 7 dirty client tricks and how to avoid them. Number 1 - Clients who write specs with leeway in them to get you to bid low thinking it's a simple project then bumping in loads of complex change requests and expect them for free.
Simon [Need a software dev?]
Simon P Stevens wrote:
Think it's time for a new article: 7 dirty client tricks and how to avoid them
The difference is the "consultant" is *supposed* to know how to do their job and their quote accordingly. The "consultant" is supposed to be the professional with expertise in this situation, not the other way around. The client is hiring a "consultant" precisely because they are *not* an expert on the situation. This is a classic predator / prey situation and there are few "consultants" that don't take full advantage of it. This is called the school of hard knocks. If, after doing it for a while and learning those lessons, you can't protect yourself from a client in such a situation so heavily skewed in the interest of the "consultant" then you need to consider a new line of work. If I had a dime for every time a so called "consultant" ripped off a client and had to pay a dime for every time a client ripped off a "consultant" I'd be the richest man on earth. I used to work in IT installing and maintaining networks in 3 different cities over a decade and we ran into "consultants" on a regular basis and to say they were the most consistently dishonest slimy bottom feeders of the IT industry would be an overwhelmingly positive way to describe them. I would conservatively estimate that 10% of the "consultants" we'd run into were honest and had their clients best interest at heart and easily 90% would be more properly described as con-men with a thin veneer of respectability. My scummy professions list has "consultants" right near the top just shy of real estate agents and politicians and just slightly higher than the commissioner of the national hockey league.
There is no failure only feedback
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Regarding the 7 dirty consultant tricks[^] article from the CP newsletter. The first point is that consultants bump up the bill "due to scope change and 'customization.'" and the recommendation is "Build some flexibility into your [proposal]"..."There should be an amount of leeway in the requirements/scope to avoid the 'out of scope' clause being used and additional charges" What complete and utter nonsense. I may be new to this freelance game but if you want an up front quote and your proposal contains the slightest bit of "leeway" on the deliverables I'll bill you hourly to do a proper investigation and rewrite you a nice tight spec that states exactly what you are going to get. No way I'm signing any contract with "leeway" in it. Save yourself some time and write a clear spec to begin with. Think it's time for a new article: 7 dirty client tricks and how to avoid them. Number 1 - Clients who write specs with leeway in them to get you to bid low thinking it's a simple project then bumping in loads of complex change requests and expect them for free.
Simon [Need a software dev?]
I don't see it as a list of things to look out for, I see it as a list of things to try >:-D
