April 1, 2012 at 10:46 am
Hi, all:
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this; I didn't really see an area for this kind of question, but if anyone has any suggestions on a better area, let me know and I'll move it.
I did some freelance work with a local nonprofit last year to design a SQL DB and front end. I made the mistake of not spec-ing out the project in detail at the outset, which resulted in major scope creep throughout the project as well as my devoting far more hours to it than I quoted them.
They've just contacted me about some additional functionality they'd like to add, and I want to make sure I go into it this time with very well-defined documentation of what the project will entail. Does anyone have a go-to DB development spec document template that you use for freelance work? Any guidance would be welcome as I have very little freelancing experience.
Thank you!
April 1, 2012 at 11:15 am
I'm not aware of any templates, but do really need one? What you really need to prevent scope creep is a requirements document and/or a functional specification. This can be as little as one page that basically lists what the customer wants done and how it is supposed to work. Once you both sign off on this, any changes to it can affect the overall time to complete and the price.
A design or development document is a detail specification which explains and documents the methodolgies and data structures you are going to use to implement the functionality the customer wants. If it is complex or the changes are extensive you really need this to get a handle on how many man-hours it will take to complete. You need to know this to figure out how much to charge.
OTOH, if it is a fairly simple project you may not even need this document to come up with a cost estimate. But without the requirements document and/or functional specification that you and the customer sign off on you are heading for problems.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
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