<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">One technique to help avoid this (that I don't use half as much as I should!) is to send the client an email or letter after your initial meeting that spells out your understanding of exactly what it is they want and how long it'll take you to do it. For bonus points you can itemise it in a list with an individual time estimate next to each item.<div><br></div><div>This way, they can see where the hours they're paying for are going and you've got something to point at when they start changing things. You can also go back to them as soon as you realise that you've underestimated how long something on the list is going to take and hopefully come to some kind of arrangement.</div><div><br></div><div>I also wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion that you overestimate how long things will take - that way if everything goes smoothly and you finish it early you can charge them less and they'll be even more likely to sing your praises :)</div><div><br></div><div>When I first started freelancing I got caught out a few times by my poor estimation skills and ended up doing a lot of extra work for nothing - nowadays I've got the experience to know where to stick an extra few hours in a quote just in case something doesn't go according to plan.</div><div><br></div><div>Reading back through that I realise that it probably doesn't help much with your current situation but hopefully you'll find some of it useful :)</div><div><br></div><div>By the way (and vaguely on topic) it's National Freelancers Day on 23rd November - <a href="http://www.nationalfreelancersday.org.uk/">http://www.nationalfreelancersday.org.uk/</a></div><div><br></div><div>All the best</div><div> Simon</div><div><br><div><br><div><div>On 29 Oct 2009, at 15:04, Rob Lacey wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Hey guys,<br><br>I wanted to ask for a bit of advice about contract work as I know many of you are contractors or have contracted. I am wrapping up a project with a client which has been troublesome to say the least. I initially quoted 13 days to make ammendments to their existing Rails application, and through the process this has stretched to about 32 days work. So I badly misjudged the length of the project, primarily because I hadn't realised how broken their app was and how crazy some of the code was (to me at least), along with requirements creeping in that I should maybe have said no to, and problems post re-launch which may have been there all along but have reared their ugly head only now.<br><br>The problem being that the client wants a working site, some of the requirements fell outside of the original spec, and delivering a far from finished article at the end of the quoted time was not really an option. I can see from their point of view I quoted a time and price, and delivered the project be it over a longer period of time so they got what they wanted. But from my point of view the work I'm 19 days down which is far from ideal.<br><br>How does anyone deal with the issue of estimation going horribly wrong? And how would you broach this with the client, obviously they thought it would take only the quoted amount that time, so its a tricky one. Is it fair to approach them and come to some compromise over the cost of the project or do you just pick yourself up, forget it and be more mean (and realistic) with your estimates next time.<br><br>RobL<br>_______________________________________________<br>Chat mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Chat@lists.lrug.org">Chat@lists.lrug.org</a><br>http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org<br></div></blockquote></div><br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; ">--<br>Simon Starr<br>t: @simonstarr<br>m: 07971 547 544<br>w: <a href="http://simonstarr.com/" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">http://simonstarr.com/</a></span></div></div></span></div></span></span>
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