If only there was a tape measure for project estimates
An interesting article over on the Hashrocket blog a couple of days ago grabbed my attention as in it they detail how they think upfront estimates (I’m assuming in both time and money) for projects are not only infeasible but also unfair to clients as, ultimately, they will be incorrect. Given that I’ve spent over seven years working in the web industry and can count on one trotter the number of projects that have ever been delivered bang on schedule, I’m inclined to agree. Yet still, we find ourselves doing it time and time again.
The simple and obvious answer to all our woes is simply to tell the client that we honestly have no idea how long something is going to take to create beyond a mild inclination in the deep recesses of our Senior Developer’s brain and that they should just accept this and pay for every day’s work until it’s done. Now, whilst approach might work for some people (can I have the names of your clients? Pretty please?), I’ve yet to personally ever encounter anyone who would accept those terms. Everyone I’ve ever met and every project I’ve ever worked one, ranging from small private clients to large public sector ones, have all adamantly requested fixed, upfront costs.