That's why I said "may", not "will". I hire a lot of contractors and if we can't specify the work sufficiently then we don't hire them. Or hire on a fixed budg

That's why I said "may", not "will". I hire a lot of contractors and if we can't specify the work sufficiently then we don't hire them. Or hire on a fixed budget to get the correct deliverables specified (if possible). When you pay for "hours worked" the incentive is to "work more hours", not deliver the result. I've seen many employees spending their employers money for such "contracts", but they will not have done that with their own money. When the task is so hard to define/specify/design, it's not a good fit for contractor's work. BTW, the building industry has been working with contractors for ages and their practices are very efficient and the IT sector will learn from them sooner or later.