What sort of work do you want to do? What sort of business do you seek?
Body shop, A-Team or bespoke software house?
This message generated a few threads: Working from home v office; pair
programming vs traditional project "individual portions"; and handling
client contact or involvement. These issues are all related to winning a
project from a client and going away to develop it (bespoke software?).
At least one earlier message concerned body-shopping i.e. putting a bunch of
developers into a site e.g. an investment bank and hiring them out on time
and materials basis. This replaces the agents with your own salesman, then
gets the team members into sites as contractors (there are many small to
medium sized consultancies in this market sector).
A lot of the messages seem to be based on the developers dream of working
with a bunch of drinking buddies (generally a good thing) and seem to assume
a software house type of business. This model is for fixed price work with
whole projects paid on delivery of the project or stages thereof and
variation orders.
The "A-Team" - scenario is one in which a team goes in to rescue a failing
project, or go in and retune/redesign an existing project that works but has
become a victim of its own success. Think of this work as bespoke
enhancements.
Unless someone brings some business to the venture (e.g. a client with a
requirement or an idea for a new software invention with sufficient
funding), the venture will need someone to bring in the business.
If the venture has a mix of bespoke software and body-shopping then the
premises will not need a desk for every member to be in the office
concurrently (at any time. some will be out at client site).
Usually within a fixed length contract there may be times when a contractor
needs to get some more work from the client. At such times the worker
attends project meetings and planning sessions which are part of the job and
are paid. A consultancy must attend meetings and discuss project
requirements in order to win business. Fees will need to cover the
consultancy for periods off charge, so basing project costs on say charging
sixty pounds per developer hour will not cover all the costs.
So, at the meeting, I suggest a few questions for the agenda: What sort of
business do you expect to win?
What funding have you (living of savings until you get money in)?
How do you want to spend your savings (office space, salesman, equipment)?
Mark
