I had a discussion with a friend a few days ago about a project we were involved with. The client were changing their minds about stuff that was not outspoken and thereby in the gray zone if it was included in the over all agreement.

They wanted to try things out just to see how it felt and it was easy to tell that the client thought that it would be included in the original agreement. We stood in front of a small but tough decision, should we go the client way and risking the project to go into trial-and-error-mode or shuld we point out that this is to step away from, what we thought was, the original agreement and it would render the client extra costs.

If we go for the client way we would risk the project to fail, not in delivery but our time vs. cost estimation would fail. Meanwhile if we go our way we would keep our margins but risk the satisfaction of the client.

To me the decision is easy, go the client way, put say 10-15% of the margins at risk. That will end you up with a client that is 200% more happy and will for sure give you a call the next time a project comes along.

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