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Posted by: Avonelle Lovhaug
Publication Date: 5/8/2009 7:54:28 AM
Most independent programmers have a fear of scope creep. Actually that’s not completely true. Most have a fear of scope creep they won’t be paid for. For those who are doing a fixed bid project, the fear is that expanding scope will eat away at any profit until they are making about $1.30/hour. Yikes.
To compensate, some programmers get very aggressive about delineating project scope. They become militant when even a small feature change is suggested. And I have a lot of sympathy for that position.
But I don’t share it.
Look, everyone I know who has been in this industry more than a couple of years has experienced a bad project. A project where everything was out of control, no one knew what the project was supposed to include or exclude, and the customer was frustrated because the project manager kept saying “that’ll be $1,000 more”. Ka-ching. I’ve been there.
But the truth is: if you don’t have a true partnership with your customer, where you both trust and respect each other and want the project and the relationship to succeed, scope creep is just a symptom of a much larger problem. And you aren’t going to solve that trust deficit by telling them that every little feature will cost extra.
Yesterday I met with a customer to show them an updated version of an application I am building for them. The system is light on specs, because we are basically re-implementing an existing Access application using .NET. I’ve been focusing on the former Access application itself, but there are some basic Access features they need as well. And we talked about them.
No I’m not going to re=create Microsoft Access. But I am going to give them some additional functionality that we didn’t specifically identify initially. That is okay. I trust them to not ask me to lose my shirt on their project. And they trust me to tell them when I feel that they’ve crossed the line.
And I’m not saying that programmers should give it all away. If you ask any of my customers, they will tell you that I often charge extra for changes in scope. But not always.
The bottom line is that software projects exist to solve business problems. If the project doesn’t solve the problem, then I haven’t done my job.
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Tags: Consulting
Peter Edstrom 08 May
Avonelle Lovhaug 09 May
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Avonelle has been a pleasure to work with. Working with someone that you know will always deliver is tremendous.
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