The “what’s in scope” argument from clients and how to cover yourself.

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009

I’ve been in the contracting / freelancing business for the past 5 years now. Just like everything else in life it has some loopholes and challenges. One of the very first reality factors of freelancing I had to face right from the beginning was to make sure that I have concrete facts to fall back on when things go haywire in a project.

A good example of this is something like “Creative Design and Adjustments”, a phrase like that opens up the door for endless arguments and confusion. What if a specific component within a website requires some creative design and adjustment which is not part of the actual user interface design of the site?

The very first thing that normally comes into debate is whether a specific task, requirement or functionality is within the original scope of deliverables. These debates, arguments or whatever you want to call it can have a big impact on your business relationship with your client.  This can also lead to tension and will most definitely affect your productivity.

The occasional client is quick to tell you that it (Creative Design and Adjustments or anything else for that matter) is part of the scope of work that you quoted for. Clearly your understanding and that of your client’s is not in sync and this is exactly where the arguments and debates start. My only advice to you is to not use any terms or phrases that leaves the back door open for any sort of arguments. Be specific, very specific on all the work deliverables of your work scope. Another useful thing to do is to explain every term and phrase used throughout the scope document in detail as an appendix in the document.

Learning the hard way I soon realized that you need to cover yourself all the time. An informal or verbal agreement is not good enough therefore record every single agreement on email and make sure you bring it to all of the project stakeholder’s attention. Unfortunately it seems that the client either tends to forget what was originally agreed upon or you get the occasional client trying their luck. You must be thinking that surely there is some sort of Scope Document that outlines the deliverables etc. Sure, but sometimes your client’s understanding of a specific term (technical or just plain English) can be very different from yours. This is exactly the kind of scenarios I’m referring to, where a specific term or phrase can be manipulated and abused to make something which is out of scope appear like it is part of your scope of work.

Tags: Freelancing
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