Re: FW: Guesstimate THIS! (was RE: Contracting Experiences

[Sharon Burton-Hardin <sharonburton -at- EMAIL -dot- MSN -dot- COM>]

And even hourly can get you in trouble. A long-standing client of mine
recently expressed displeasure about our doc plans and dates and costs. They
are running 5 months - at least - behind original dates. They have frozen
the UI 3 times in 4 months and then changed it without documenting what has
changed.

All doc plans and time estimates have clearly stated that all numbers
depended on certain milestones - like frozen UI, complete com objects, and
frozen features. They finally want beta last week and are now expressing
displeasure with the fact that the docs are not accurate for the beta. But
for the past 4 months they have randomly added features, changed the UI, and
have still not finalized 3 modules. They expect to in the next few weeks and
want to go to press in 5 weeks! like this is possible, regardless of the
number of people thrown at the project. We have a 500 page user's guide that
has to be gone over word for word to see what has changed and we still don't
have 3 modules solid or close to it.

Everyone is nuts because everything has taken so long but they are simply
not understanding that without a product spec, a feature list, solid UI, or
actual dates, accurate and complete docs are not possible. It was very
difficult to listen to the fact that we are way over time and cost
estimates. They are just not getting that this is the result of how they are
developing.

If this had been a flat rate project with deviations costed out at a high
hourly rate - the way I would have done this as a flat rate project - some
of this craziness could have been avoided or at least mitigated. It would
have forced some order on this out of control development process, perhaps.
Perhaps. I wish I could walk on this project with integrity but I can't. I
have to try to finish it and I will probably never work with this client
again. Assuming that we ever actually have a product.

sharon

Sharon Burton-Hardin
President of the Inland Empire chapter of the STC
www.iestc.org
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS(tm), the unofficial RoboHELP newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
See www.sharonburton.com!




|>
|>       My first rule of thumb as a contractor, though, was absolutely do
not
|take fixed-bid-only jobs.  There are usually way too many variables to
|predict accurately, and the very fact that the client wanted one usually
|either meant they didn't have a clue what it was going to take to do the
|job, or they were fairly ignorant of the software development process, or
|they wanted to pull a fast one.  There's nothing wrong with walking away
|from a potential contract if it isn't right for you.
|>
|>
|==========================
|Obligatory bad haiku:
|
|Ah, reality
|sets in too soon.  Alarm rings:
|Monday morning! ARGH!
|
|Linda Castellani
|Technical Writer
|GRIC Communications, Inc.
|1421 McCarthy Blvd.
|Milpitas, CA   95035
|
|408.965.1169
|408.955.1968 - fax
|
|linda -at- gric -dot- com
|<http://www.gric.com>
|
|From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000==
|
|
|

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=