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I never do fixed-price projects and instead, provide best-effort estimates and bill by the hour. So far this is the best advice I have seen in this thread. So
by ErrantX 15y ago
I never do fixed-price projects and instead, provide best-effort estimates and bill by the hour.
So far this is the best advice I have seen in this thread. So +1 :)
I used to give fixed-price quotes and it burns you more often than not.
- thibaut_barrere 15y agoThanks :) One way to put it is (and how I explained it to a client once): if you do fixed price and estimate 100, but end up having 120 of work, then you'd need to quote 140 (40 padding) to the next project estimated at 100, just to make up for your previous loss. In the end the uncertainty costs everyone. For people willing to find how to do better estimate, I can warmly recommend following Mike Cohn training: http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile-estimating-planning-training http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile-estimating-plannin... (and related books), as well as acunote which I use to estimate, plan and manage my projects: http://www.acunote.com http://www.acunote.com
- j45 15y agoI do something similar, in the middle of a fixed price and a best guess estimate (I can go back for an increase of hours). The key to either is being accurate at estimating, which in turn means being able to find the number and size of potential unknowns/gotchas in an estimate. Get good at that and it's a lot easier, especially on projects you have built from scratch, which lend themselves a lot better to fixed-price quotes.
- reuven 15y agoAgreed. I can't remember the last fixed-price project I did in which the client and I were both satisfied.