5 ms·

If you are hiring someone who does not know how to tell how long it will take them.

Swizec 6y ago
Since I pay for results that’s their problem. At least financially. Dealing with delays is easier if they don’t come with crazy extra costs. Imagine paying someone an extra $10,000 because they missed the deadline. That’s how hourly works.
- afarrell 6y ago
  If you've hired someone who doesn't know how to predict how long the project will take and they suddenly stop development midway through, it is probably also your problem. > Imagine paying someone an extra $10,000 because they missed the deadline. That’s how hourly works. Yes it is. You should probably ensure you only hire people who have experience predicting the costs of the projects you hire them for.
  - mechEpleb 6y ago
    There is no way to know ahead of time what kind of contractor you are. And if you're not making an active effort to bill as much as humanly possible for the minimum amount of actual work, you are bad at business.
    - afarrell 6y ago
      > if you're not making an active effort to bill as much as humanly possible for the minimum amount of actual work, you are bad at business. Deep Neural Networks who try too hard to maximize or minimize things will take weird misaligned actions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao4jwLwT36M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao4jwLwT36M I won't go into details, but my experience from the past year of trying to minimize the chances of losing my home and work visa has provided ample evidence that this also applies to human mental health. > There is no way to know ahead of time what kind of contractor you are. Which is why any strategy that resembles "fire and forget" is a poor one for anything that hasn't been repeatedly tested before with mostly the same components. It's better to have a process where you repeatedly get visibility into a risk than to imagine that you can wall yourself off from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M
mratsim 6y ago
Unfortunately, without having done the same job, it's hard to evaluate the time, even if you pad. And for lots of complex jobs you have skeleton in the closet, meetings upon meetings, extra management to contact for approval. I'd rather charge by day/week to discourage those unproductive things and have the company get its act together in terms of scope/approvals so that there is no blocker (or they get expensive).
mechEpleb 6y ago
You might (think) you know how long it will take you; we don't. We don't even know if you're being honest, or deliberately underestimating/overcharging for work. Because an hourly rate means you have every incentive to do so.
- afarrell 6y ago
  A relationship without well-founded trust is often a worse alternative to no relationship at all. * A contractor who insists on an hourly rate for a project with unknown timeline does himself and the client the favor of killing the deal. * A client who insists on a total-cost pricing for a project they need budget-certainty on does himself and the contractor the favor of killing the deal.

Since I pay for results that’s their problem. At least financially. Dealing with delays is easier if they don’t come with crazy extra costs. Imagine paying someone an extra $10,000 because they missed the deadline. That’s how hourly works.

afarrell 6y ago
If you've hired someone who doesn't know how to predict how long the project will take and they suddenly stop development midway through, it is probably also your problem. > Imagine paying someone an extra $10,000 because they missed the deadline. That’s how hourly works. Yes it is. You should probably ensure you only hire people who have experience predicting the costs of the projects you hire them for.
- mechEpleb 6y ago
  There is no way to know ahead of time what kind of contractor you are. And if you're not making an active effort to bill as much as humanly possible for the minimum amount of actual work, you are bad at business.
  - afarrell 6y ago
    > if you're not making an active effort to bill as much as humanly possible for the minimum amount of actual work, you are bad at business. Deep Neural Networks who try too hard to maximize or minimize things will take weird misaligned actions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao4jwLwT36M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao4jwLwT36M I won't go into details, but my experience from the past year of trying to minimize the chances of losing my home and work visa has provided ample evidence that this also applies to human mental health. > There is no way to know ahead of time what kind of contractor you are. Which is why any strategy that resembles "fire and forget" is a poor one for anything that hasn't been repeatedly tested before with mostly the same components. It's better to have a process where you repeatedly get visibility into a risk than to imagine that you can wall yourself off from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M

mratsim 6y ago

Unfortunately, without having done the same job, it's hard to evaluate the time, even if you pad. And for lots of complex jobs you have skeleton in the closet, meetings upon meetings, extra management to contact for approval. I'd rather charge by day/week to discourage those unproductive things and have the company get its act together in terms of scope/approvals so that there is no blocker (or they get expensive).

mechEpleb 6y ago

You might (think) you know how long it will take you; we don't. We don't even know if you're being honest, or deliberately underestimating/overcharging for work. Because an hourly rate means you have every incentive to do so.

afarrell 6y ago
A relationship without well-founded trust is often a worse alternative to no relationship at all. * A contractor who insists on an hourly rate for a project with unknown timeline does himself and the client the favor of killing the deal. * A client who insists on a total-cost pricing for a project they need budget-certainty on does himself and the contractor the favor of killing the deal.