Kristina, thanks for adding to Marc's advice. I'm putting everyone's
feedback together so I can sort through it, organize it, and use is as a
guide to try and work my way through this project with as few gotchas as
possible.
Though I'm no longer working freelance, I'll advise my employer that it
would be best to get an up-front payment on this lest it start to drag
out (which tends to happen even with static sites--it really gets absurd
sometimes).
Regards,
Bev
Kristina Anderson wrote:
Exactly. The operative words here being "unexpected client requests".
No matter how thoroughly you spec things out and try to anticipate
everything you will be spending a LOT of time dealing with client
saying "OH, but I thought the site would do XYZ..." or "OH, but I
thought that it would be better if we did it like this instead" or just
plain obnoxious behavior like, "GUESS WHAT, we decided that we need 4
additional reports of sales activity but we can't extend your
deadline"...so allow as much extra time as your client will agree to.
Explain to them that by your allowing for a sufficient amount of time
and careful planning and testing, you are guaranteeing delivery of a
quality application to them, and you don't want to cut corners in any
way.
Also make sure to get a percentage of payment up front or within the
first couple of weeks, that way if things drag out during the client
approval phase, you won't be left holding 100% of the bag waiting.
And I totally 100% agree, it's nearly impossible to effectively test
you own code to production-quality perfection, you need to plan to
bring someone else in on that.
-- Kristina
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