Fixed Everything

There was some talk over at Signal versus Noise about trashcan deliverables. I find their blog interesting and very recognisable.

We’ve been doing Fixed Everything contracts for a few years now and with astonishing success. Our proposals have become our number one unique selling point. Clients adore our proposals and we often find them inquiring how we do it. And Jason is right; Happy clients all around.
We’ve developed a way to estimate functionality that is congruent throughout projects. That enables us to fix time, budget, scope and quality in the contract. (Well we have only one level of quality: The Highest. Well, there is another level of quality, but that’s only used when people’s lives depend on the software…)
We guarantee on-time, on-budget delivery of the project. If we’re one day late, the customer does not have to pay. If we go over budget, it is our problem. It won’t cost the customer one penny more. We guarantee the amount of scope we produce. Furthermore, the customer can stop the project at any time.
Flexibility or agility is retained because:
• If the project is finished and there is still value to be delivered, the customer can start a new project delivering that value.
• If during the project the customer finds his priorities have changed, the customer can exchange functionality. (ExChange Request) i.e. Take out the same estimated amount of functionality and replace it with something more valuable.
• Progress is measured in Delivered Working Software.
• Customer cannot exchange delivered functionality.

Amounts of documents for the customer to sign: 1 Contract
Happiness level of customers: 3E (Excited – Elated – Ecstatic)

Be sure of one thing: Keep your promises. If you do, your earn trust. Still you can only earn trust if you trust yourself and abolish fear. Having dozens of documents to sign or trashcan deliverables is a clear sign of lack of trust, either in yourself or in your relation with the customer. Customers need to learn inside a project too. We’ve never finished a project with the exact same functionality that was in the contract. Still all our customers are references. So it can be done and we have been doing it long since we ever heard of 37signals or Getting Real. We’re just glad to see others doing it as well. We hope you do it too.

@Rachel: Drop that project. If no one is willing to invest time to be a decent customer there is no value in your project. The only way to provide value is to drop it. Instant value;

• Less loss of resources on something nobody wants or believes in
• Less frustration for you and the team
• Less documents
• Less paper
• Less trees killed

Everybody profits!

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