Bev -- Absolutely, especially if you have to answer to both an employer AND the client as to the agreed upon amount of time, make sure that you are really comfortable with the timeline you agree to.
Also, if you have any programming questions, put them out there now rather than later so that you can educate yourself and be able to back up your employer's request to justify why it will take the amount of time it will take. Good luck! You will learn a lot doing this and have fun too :) Kristina > 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 > _______________________________________________ > New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List > http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk > > NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online > http://www.nyphpcon.com > > Show Your Participation in New York PHP > http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php > > _______________________________________________ New York PHP Community Talk Mailing List http://lists.nyphp.org/mailman/listinfo/talk NYPHPCon 2006 Presentations Online http://www.nyphpcon.com Show Your Participation in New York PHP http://www.nyphp.org/show_participation.php
