
If a client won’t give you a budget, they’re not serious - HipstaJules
https://medium.com/@giuliomichelon/if-a-client-wont-give-you-a-budget-they-re-not-serious-79322796f534#.rk4fujie3
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todd8
An interesting variation of this was pointed out to me by a colleague while I
worked in a very large company. We would often get requests from management to
size various efforts. Often it would be hard to accurately guesstimate how
long something would take. (Do we get to use a team of the companies most
experienced kernel developers? Or will it be work done by some external
company?) My colleague pointed out that often the management team had already
made the decision and were just looking for numbers to justify their plan.
They had a budget, but wouldn't reveal it.

This meant that realistic sizings were often met with skepticism. "Do you
really think that would take 22 person-years of effort?" Predictably, this led
to the decision being made without the sizing (why did we have to spend two
weeks on the estimate just to have it thrown out) or with an unrealistic
adjustment made to the sizing (again why bother with the estimate). I hated
the idea that the most experienced developers where treated like they weren't
really onboard with the company's goals (because of the more conservative
estimates), while crazy proposals for version two (with specifications for new
features measuring 3 feet high) were thought to be genius; this led to version
2 being a year late and two-thirds of it's features jettisoned by the time of
the release--along with the promotion of everyone that had made the worst
mistakes.

I worked at one company where the senior staff finally outlawed the posting of
Dilbert cartoons on the development floors.

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slgeorge
Personally, I _never_ answer this question when using an external supplier.

Because, if you do, it goes something like this:

1\. External supplier, "What's your budget for this work?" 2\. customer,
"Something between 50-100k" 3\. External supplier, "blah, blah, blah <about
how the work is hard/complex/we poor business saps just don't get it>" 4\.
External supplier, "Our initial estimate is 100k"

It's a type of price fixing, and as everyone knows the first price anchoring
is the most significant. While many people are ethical, many are not - and I'm
sure everyone has had this experience at some point, whether in business or a
plumber!

That's not to say that customers should not be able to provide an initial good
description of what they're requesting. Or that complex requirements
development shouldn't be commercially charged in it's own right.

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wccrawford
There's nothing in this article that couldn't be inferred from the headline
and just a tiny bit of development experience.

The time estimation link that it references is a _lot_ more informative.

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HipstaJules
The link couldn't be inferred from the title, so the first phrase is wrong ;)

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ajuc
It could be infered using google :)

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brudgers
Even when a client has a budget, if they won't give you a retainer check,
they're not serious about starting right now...and maybe not serious about
paying you at all.

