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Side comment: The line between overestimating and surprising yourself when you needed less time (therefore pocketing a "nice bonus"), and taking advantage of a customer who cannot evaluate software development estimates seems too fine to me. I have certainly seen ridiculously high estimates that indicate either incompetence on the part of the developers, or the developers preying on and defrauding the customer. An ethical freelancer should not play these kinds of games, using the customer's trust and ignorance to get more money out of them. In too many real contracts, when the developer discovers they grossly underestimated and have run out of money on their fixed-fee budget, they ask the customer to spend more. The customer now has a terrible choice. They are "pot committed" as poker players say. Can they enforce the original contract and estimate, losing any velocity and good will by calling in lawyers (and wasting money and time on that)? Does the work done so far have any value to them? I've seen developers hold their customer for ransom when this happens. And I've seen project budgets double through the use of "change orders," like the customer reviewing work in progress and asking for changes that the developer should have anticipated. I once got a call from an attorney friend who told me his firm got an estimate for $20,000 to upgrade the law office to high-speed internet and set up every PC (15 in all) and two printers on a new LAN. Then $1,500 month for a maintenance contract. That number seemed high to my friend, not crazy high, but he had no point of reference so he asked me. I quickly found that Comcast had business cable service to that building for less than $200/month. The printers already had ethernet, some of the PCs did, the rest would need $20 ethernet cards. Then some cable and a router and few hours to install and set it up. I told him I would do it for $2,500 plus materials, no monthly maintenance fee, and just the monthly Comcast bill. That was in the pre-wifi days. I have seen stuff like this happen many times and to me it just looks deceptive and predatory. |