NYCPHP Meetup

[Kristina Anderson]

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
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