You don’t “take a reasonable guess at value”! You let the client tell you the value of having their problem fixed, but you probably help them to think all inside and around their problem so they see the full value.

Yes, you should charge for the “discovery” project. Get paid at least half in advance for this and the rest before or as you finish, then get paid half the remainder of your fee before you start the main development project.

Remember you are ‘discovering’ scope here, not value. I the same way as earlier comments talked about the need to separate project management from fee setting, there is a need to differentiate scope and value.

I think the client WILL be happy to pay up-front IF trust is established AND value is clear AND Return on Investment is compelling AND timescales are acceptable.

I think any client would be rightly unhappy if “done” wasn’t unambiguously defined. And so ought any developer. Scope isn’t to be “wrangled” for either party. Scope is deliverables and acceptance criteria – Objectives and Metrics in Alan Weiss speak.

I do think there may be a reluctance on the part of some developers to sell properly. I sense that some developers think that selling is something they don’t want to do, but someone somewhere has to establish trust, and help the client understand value.

Fine if you don’t want to sell but in that case you have to employ the services of a salesperson to do it for you. If you don’t do this you’ll quite likely want to start developing as a means of building trust, and presenting interim solutions as a way of getting the client to think about scope.

Developers doing this in the past and present has ‘queered the pitch’ for the future. Clients believe that all developers are barely more than incompetent until proved otherwise, and that all technology projects come out over time and over budget. This has to change and you have to start now!

Selling isn’t difficult. For heaven’s sake, I was a hardware designer and programmer myself once! If I can do it, most others can. You need to work with someone who can explain the ‘why’, give you models and worked examples for the ‘how’, and work with you until you’re confident to do it on your own. If you can’t find anyone else, I’ll teach you!

David

P.S. I presume you’re original “reasonable guess” of the value of the project to the client was actually around $500,000 so that $50,000 looked compelling!

If I understand you correctly, I am to take a reasonable guess as to the value of the project, say $50,000. Then charge $5,000-$12,500 for the discovery. Then, when the scope has been wrangled to *my* satisfaction, collect 50% of the remainder ($22,500-$18,750) to commence implementation, and the other 50% at some future date?

I’m okay with all that. What the client may not be okay with is paying before the job is “done”, and the associated ambiguity with which “done” is defined, especially in technology projects.

Thanks,
Mark

You could charge time and materials – plus margin – for the ‘discovery’ project, but this will put you in a pretty weak position for using value-based pricing for the main project later.

It wouldn’t be easy IMHO to arrive at a value-based price for the discovery project in isolation. I think in value terms it’s all part of the main project. You’re wanting to ring-fence its scope to prevent ‘scope creep’.

Nevertheless you’ll need a price so that you can get paid for the initial work up-front, so just choose any fee that seems reasonable and is profitable, maybe between 10% and 25% of what you feel the overall price should be. You will already have agreed the value of the project, you’re just investigating the detailed scope of the main project.

When presenting the value-based price for the main project you can point out that part of it has already been paid, so you just need 50% of the remainder in order to get started.

So how is everybody going to stop this happening?

Telling the client at the outset that you’ll review and bill every week and they can request whatever changes they like doesn’t look to me as though it’s going to work!

Fixed-scope is needed so that you can say “If it’s outside the scope, it’s a separate, separately chargeable project” when you should. But you can only have a fixed scope when the client fully understands their own issue.

You maybe need a preliminary, chargeable project to help them arrive at that understanding so you can (fixed) scope the main project.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Designer’s generally design web layout …. may work in conjunction with a graphic designer .. and you integrate your designs with the developer .. or vice versa …

You may be all of the above but depending on the scale of an organisation they may just want dedicated people working on each area.

Really though you’d want to look them up specifically

James

Thanks once again.