Summary: Panel Ashe Dryden (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 00:39 - Experience working with fixed bids 04:08 - Risks Value 06:45 - Collecting Payment Working in phases and milestones 08:56 - Are fixed bid projects fair? 16:57 - Nailing down specifics 19:51 - Dealing with scope creep Contract clauses/additional contracts 26:15 - Getting clients to agree with your fixed bid or hourly preference 28:29 - Estimates Prioritizing Point estimation 37:11 - Transitioning from fixed bid to hourly work 38:42 - Figuring out what to bid Project management Value-Based Fees: How to Charge - and Get - What You're Worth by Alan Weiss Option pricing 44:41 - Ask clients why they prefer fixed bid pricing Picks Healthy Programmer by Joe Kutner (Ashe) DuoLingo (Ashe) #RubyThanks (Ashe) Becoming a Better Programmer Indie GoGo campaign (Ashe) Douglas Rushkoff: Wall Street Journal adaptation from Present Shock (Eric) Ruby Heroes (Chuck) Colloquy (Chuck) Value-Based Fees: How to Charge - and Get - What You're Worth by Alan Weiss (Jeff) Next Week How do you convince clients of the value of tests, refactoring, etc.? Transcript ERIC: Chuck, I'm cold. Keep me warm! [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 57 of the Ruby Freelancers Show! This week on our panel, we have Ashe Dryden. ASHE: Hello from Madison, Wisconsin! CHUCK: Eric Davis. ERIC: Hello! CHUCK: Jeff Schoolcraft. JEFF: What's up! CHUCK: I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv. This week, we're going to be talking about "Fixed Bids". How much of you guys done with fixed bids? ASHE: I used to do them a lot more than I do them now; I actually tried to not do fixed bids. CHUCK: Is there a reason for that? ASHE: Yeah. It never really sticks really well with the fixed bid; I mostly do hourly now. I prefer hourly because it allows the client to kind of expand or contract their needs without feeling limited by the contract and it makes me feel less mean. CHUCK: Oh, it makes sense. ASHE: So I don't have to constantly say "Well, that wasn't really part of the original contract". I can give them what they need and what they want without having to have that difficult conversation. CHUCK: How about you guys, Eric and Jeff? JEFF: I've done a few very small fixed bid projects. But by large, I'm mostly hourly mostly for the same reason as Ashe has. And beyond that, it's really hard to get a scope timed on off and it makes it comfortable for me to try to bid on something. ERIC: For me...I don't know, maybe 20% if that -- I actually have a different reason. I don't mind fixed bids, but the project has to be very specific. There has to be a lot of trust between me and the client first off so that I can trust that they're going to understand what's cocube is; we don't have those problems or discussions. The other side of it is, the project has to be [inaudible] and that it's something I've done before or there's not a lot of technical risk on the project. If there is a lot of technical risk for a lot of unknowns, then I basically say "We're going to have to be hourly because I can't guess this upfront and commit to it". CHUCK: Yeah. I've done a couple of fixed bids myself, they were less than a thousand dollars effect; both of them were $500 a piece and it was an enough work that it wasn't that risky. One of them, I really actually didn't get paid on; and it was because I was setting up some software, some third-party software, for somebody on their server. He was unhappy with the result because there was a bug in the software that I set up, but I didn't actually write it. Anyway, it's kind of interesting I haven't done major fixed bid projects,
