Over the last 10 years I've had quite a few clients who havent had much more of an idea of what they want than "i need a web site for my online store".
Early on, I made the silly mistake of getting started on designs in the hope that if i gave them some idea of what it could look like, that would help them pin down more specifically what they needed. Dumb idea. I ended up doing a lot of work only to have the client say "well i dont like that much, so I'll see if i can get a better idea from someone else." Lesson: no design work until you work out from the client what they want and get a payment up front. Not even "a few suggested ideas". Similarly, no dev work either for much the same reason. And I reckon you cant work out what your design or development component is going to take you in terms of time and resources until you pin down what's going to be there. Do you need a flash expert? DBA? Designer? How do you know (and therefore how can you cost for it) if you havent specified out the site? It's amazing how many people not in the IT business are a bit surprised by my approach to it. They wouldnt ask a builder for a quote on building a house before they even decide how many bedrooms they need. As to Duncan's initial question about a rule of thumb as to proportions of time spent on the different phases of the project -i doubt whether you could draw a rule of thumb, since so few projects are just cookie-cutter versions of previous projects. You have to spec the job first, then cost all the rest of the project based on that. I guess you could keep track of how much time you spent doing the spec and build that into the quote, either as a cost/overhead recovery or a specific quoted item. Even when I look back at the sites I've built that are structurally similar, I can't really say there is a pattern about the amount of time spent on the different phases. Even for the "same as that other job" sites, there are significant differences in the amount of time spent.on each phase. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month On 4/23/06, Peter Tilbrook <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I agree about the design component. But if the client has no idea of what > they want - or even some of the steps to get there... > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "cfaussie" group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
