This post was mentioned on Twitter by Octane: Asking clients the right questions before, during and after a project ( http://ow.ly/1w7C1 ). #business…

I’ve found that clients rarely want to pay in stages less than £500 within any given project. Typically, I invoice in £1,000-2,000 chunks matched to key milestones with demonstrable evidence of progress.

Also, for me personally, any amount of work worth less than a thousand pounds probably wouldn’t represent a significant amount of progress. So I’m guessing you deal with much larger projects?

Win-win!

I had to re-read what I wrote. I make no mention of any big design phase, and what I do explain does suggest an iterative approach.

This article is in no way an expansive insight in project planning. That’s beyond the remit of article.

Clients are entirely within their right to change their minds, there’s no contesting that. But if they do — and in a way that totally changes the course of the project — they have to accept their accountability in that regard. You can’t account for every eventuality, no matter how well you plan a project.

That aside, thanks for the comment all the same. You’ve certainly gone where I didn’t intend, which is great!

However, I must admit the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I read about the ‘big design phase’ happening up front.

While your client might not want a bungalow now, and might even agree with you that they will eventually need a four-story office block … what happens when they realise six months down the line that they don’t want the office block after all, but an estate of bungalows linked by underground tunnels instead?

Doing too much design up front can be considered a high risk approach. Unforeseen requirement changes happen. They always have, and always will.

By taking a more iterative approach, you could minimise risk to yourself and your clients by only introducing the features they really need, as and when they need them.

I wrote a post about this on my blog article Dam the waterfall: get Agile recently.

Perhaps you could offer your clients the option of which methodology they would rather you use on their project: Waterfall or Agile?

It’s something to think about.