[mpiccino]

Question on project-based pricing... Is it good to leave a final payment upon completion?

We didn't do that on my project and it was frustrating because there was no incentive at the end to get the final issues sorted out. We could tell that our contractors were burned out and ready to move on, but we needed our project completed as originally planned and it was hard to keep them motivated with no financial upside for them. Especially since, with all the delays, they had already spent more time on the project than they had budgeted for, so they were essentially losing money on the deal.

Yes, we could have agreed to put more money into this and started up a "new" project, but it didn't seem fair to us at that point...

Is it standard in the industry to leave a portion of the cost to be due only upon completion? Because I think that would have helped us, but we didn't know at the outset if it was within our bargaining power to try to get that...

[asanwal]

We always leave some payment upon completion. If they are expecting payment, bug fixes and other issues won't fall totally off the radar for them.

It helps ensure incentive alignment.

And if the provider is adamant about not taking some portion of payment at completion, I'd wonder (and IMO, I'd walk away)