[Asterisk-biz] A question about ethics, I suppose

[JD Austin]

Michael Giagnocavo wrote:

>>I ask for 50% of labor and 100% of
>>hardware costs and with a few bad jobs think that this is a safe way
>>of weeding them out.
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That is a very good idea. 

>Even better is leaving a "secret" backdoor, that they AGREE to. Sure, if
>they hire good enough people they can disable it. But at least it gives you
>some level of security.
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I'd never thought of doing something like that (grin)  I've always 
thought of backdoors/etc as unethical, but I suppose if the client 
agrees to the back door it's ok.
I recently had to take a client for a programming project to court for 
non payment.  Time will tell how it turns out, but I do know that I'll 
never work on a project again without a firm specification and firm 
understanding with the client about how payment will work.

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>>What could cause stress to the consulting
>>relationship?
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>Clear expectations, project planning, requirements. Not having these things
>is a pretty good way to ensure failure. I dealt with a client that had some
>great ideas, but no management powers. A really basic "requirements" doc was
>passed off as a technical specification. I think that even a year after I
>left the project, they are almost in the same spot, since there's no clear
>expectations of what exactly has to be done. 
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I totally agree.  The problem is getting the client/boss/whatever to put 
enough time into their own project to figure out what they want.  Most 
of the time they want you to figure out what they want and write the 
specification too, of course they don't want to PAY for the 
specification (grin) 

>I know a lot of people have bashed requirements and specifications
>documents, seeing them as just junk that slows you down. Yes, it takes time.
>But without it, no one is quite sure what they're building. If you're
>writing a 3 hour hack job, that's one thing. But anything more involved than
>a day, and there has just GOT to be a clearcut expectation. Sometimes
>clients don't want to pay for intangibles like a project manager. 
>
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I think documentation is essential for even a three hour hack.  Later if 
you're called to modify your code lack of documentation can make it 
difficult to figure out exactly what you were doing and how.

>Specifications will change, grow, evolve. Both the client and the consultant
>have to have agreed on how this will happen. The client obviously won't pay
>for something that doesn't fit their needs, and the consultant obviously
>isn't going to program a whole new system because the client decided that a
>GTK+ interface is better than a PHP-based one.
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My biggest annoyance is that clients seem to think it's ok to expand the 
specifications without paying for those changes.  All of those little 
changes they make can add up to a ton of time!

>Through experience, I've learned to be highly cautious to take on any
>project not well defined, or where the client isn't willing to get into
>specs and design. 
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Wise move.

>Yea, people will try to screw you out of money, and you gotta watch out for
>that. 
>
Yep.. just happened (grin)
Im hoping the court system will convince this guy to pay for the time 
spent on his project.

>But derailed nightmare projects can be much worse.
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Been on those.. feature creep from hell!  You end up throwing away 
version1.0 and writing v2.0 from scratch.
I've yet to get a client that had a real specification or more than 3/4 
of an idea of what they wanted; makes it difficult to estimate.

JD

-- 
JD Austin
Twin Geckos Technology Services LLC
email: jd at twingeckos.com
http://www.twingeckos.com
phone/fax: 480.288.8195 

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