I suspect we're communicating at cross-purposes here: If we stripped our two approaches of their labels, they'd look very much alike. You do time & materials; I do small-granularity fixed bids on individual features.
If you've used Pivotal Tracker, you'll understand my model: I commit to doing, say, 5 or 15 points of features in an iteration, for a fixed price. If the client wants to adjust the feature set, that's great! If I misjudge an estimate, and spend an extra day on something, the client doesn't pay extra. But if I have an extremely productive week, I earn a bit more. In the end, it balances out.
Usually around week 2, there's a brief moment of awkwardness where the client realizes that scope creep costs money.[1] But I help them cut a few marginal features, and we're ready to proceed. And from then on, the client is thinking about trade-offs, ROI, and priorities. And that's an excellent basis for a successful, long-term relationship.
I'm happy that you've found a model which works for your and your clients. Contracting should not be a miserable or adversarial process.
[1] Scope creep always costs money. It's better to make this visible to the client, even at the cost of some initial awkwardness. The usual alternative is to surprise the client later, when the bills come due. I've seen contractors do that, and I dislike it.
Comments
I suspect we're communicating at cross-purposes here: If we stripped our two approaches of their labels, they'd look very much alike. You do time & materials; I do small-granularity fixed bids on individual features.
If you've used Pivotal Tracker, you'll understand my model: I commit to doing, say, 5 or 15 points of features in an iteration, for a fixed price. If the client wants to adjust the feature set, that's great! If I misjudge an estimate, and spend an extra day on something, the client doesn't pay extra. But if I have an extremely productive week, I earn a bit more. In the end, it balances out.
Usually around week 2, there's a brief moment of awkwardness where the client realizes that scope creep costs money.[1] But I help them cut a few marginal features, and we're ready to proceed. And from then on, the client is thinking about trade-offs, ROI, and priorities. And that's an excellent basis for a successful, long-term relationship.
I'm happy that you've found a model which works for your and your clients. Contracting should not be a miserable or adversarial process.
[1] Scope creep always costs money. It's better to make this visible to the client, even at the cost of some initial awkwardness. The usual alternative is to surprise the client later, when the bills come due. I've seen contractors do that, and I dislike it.