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Re: Questions - Going from Hourly to Per Project Basis
Subject:Re: Questions - Going from Hourly to Per Project Basis From:"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 1 Oct 2003 05:27:21 -0400
anachie sheakspear wrote:
> as an hourly consultant. A few weeks ago, the CFO told
> me that it was costing them too much, so they want to
> engage my services on a per project basis.
Tech writing on a fixed bid is usually bad news. There are too many
unforseeable dependencies for this kind of work. If you can scope out the
project to the nth degree, and then craft a flexible, artfully worded
contract with lots of out clauses, maybe you can get away with it.
Otherwise, I'd say you are about to get slammed.
You could show up at your meeting with a draft contract that you have
pre-written in your favor:
- Exhaustively name all the deliverables they must provide to you so you
can get your project done
- Allow for the schedule to slip when they don't provide those deliverables
- Establish a weekly meeting to reset the project schedule
- Add a clause for unforseeable complications that are discovered as you go
along.
Maybe your draft contract will force them to recognize the unforseeable,
on-the-fly nature of tech writing, and they will abandon the idea of
per-project pricing. Or maybe they will just laugh and rip up your draft.
Could be they are setting up to compare you against some other outsourcing
bids, and they want it apples-to-apples. Ask them what their cost target is,
then offer to lower your hourly rate to meet the target (if you are so
willing). If they are up to something, that ought to smoke 'em out.
Are they doing this to all their contractors, or just you? If they are
moving their coders to fixed-bid too, find out how they scope and define
their projects, and try to scope yours the same way.
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