Re: Estimating Projects

["Elna Tymes" <etymes -at- lts -dot- com>]

Andrew Plato wrote:

> John's staged payment idea is not industry standard for consultants. If I had a
> tech writer who did a scope and outline and then folded his arms and waited for
> a check, I would probably send that person packing.

First off, there IS no "industry standard" for consultants.  Any attempt to say so
is simply hype.  It is more common for writers and clients to agree to a
time-and-materials basis, but some clients prefer a flat fee basis because knowing
how much they're getting in for makes them more comfortable.  Unfortunately, as
those of us who have tried this route and gotten burned have learned, there are
always problems that change the bases for those estimates: feature creep,
additional reviews, "Oh s___, I forgot to tell you," etc.

While YOU might send a writer packing, I have been in situations, as principal,
where submitting a schedule and outline and waiting for a check makes a great deal
of common sense.  Unlike Andrew's fairytale marketplace, the real world contains
good clients and bad, cheats and scam artists as well as struggling startups, and
big clients with dubious financial practices (ask anyone about Oracle's well-known
practice of 45-day payables for contractors, IF they manage to find your
paperwork).  I have a responsibility to my employees and subcontractors to pay them

on time.  I can't do that if the client doesn't keep their end of the bargain.  If
the agreement between writer and client is that the client makes a staged payment
in return for the outline and schedule, it makes sense for the writer to at least
question things if the client doesn't pay on time.

> The key to decent contract engagements is having a good technical services
> agreement that outlines your roles and responsibilities and makes it clear that
> they will pay you for your services and you will provide good documentation.
> If you have a solid, legal contract then there is no worry. If they stiff you,
> you sue them.

Unfortunately, most writing contracts exceed the amount allowed in Small Claims
Court (in California, that's $5000), so suing a client who stiffs you can involve
legal fees and delays of up to two or three years.  Nobody I know in this business
has the wherewithal to take a client to court and wait for three years to collect
on a $20,000 contract.

> The best way is to estimate a project first, get the client to sign off on the
> estimate, and then do the work and invoice them like any other service
> organization in the world.

And in most situations, if both sides do what they've signed up to do, when it was
supposed to happen, there are no problems. However the incidence of bad apples in
this barrel we call a marketplace is sufficiently high that reasonable prudence is
better than constantly relying on the Pollyannish hope that all clients will do
what they agreed to do.  Perhaps in Andrew's fairytale marketplace in Oregon all
clients pay their bills and keep their agreements.  In the real world in California

and other parts of the US, some startups go bellyup with no notice, some shady
engineering managers think they can get something for little or nothing, and some
doc managers get crosswise with their finance departments, and the contractors
suffer.

Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems