- Jun
- 05
- 2008
When To Say NO To A Project
By: Robert Dempsey | Tags:During my Agile talk at RailsConf 2008 I was asked if we turn down jobs. My answer was yes. Some clients can work within a scrum process, others cannot, and yet others you just want to stay away from. A follow-up question to that was how I know if we should turn down a project, what are the indicators that someone might be a bad fit for scrum or the company. My responses included:
- The person has not invested any time up front to create any documentation listing what they want their site to do.
- The person is asking for an estimate on a laundry list of features that they cannot explain the goals of (i.e they heard the stuff is cool and want a site to do all of it).
- They are trying to rush into a project without much forethought (similar to #1 but with added urgency and increased danger of failure).
- The client is non-technical and attempting to dictate application architecture.
- No budget. While a budget isn’t always a necessity, it usually means that the person on the other end is fishing and doesn’t have funds yet available. This is more of a warning sign than a “turn down this project” sign since people sometimes go for funding once they know how much their project will cost.
Note that I said “might” before, as some of the above can be handled through education. Chris pointed out a list of Software’s Classic Mistakes, some of which apply to turning down projects as well. The main ones that jump out at me are:
- Overly optimistic schedules
- Unrealistic expectations
- Lack of project sponsorship
- Lack of user involvement
What are the “stay away from this one” signs that you look for?
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4 Responses to “When To Say NO To A Project”
On June 5th, 2008 at 3:15 pm Chris Scott said:
Clients that talk about how bad their last developer was or mention their lawsuit against them. Don’t think you’ll be any different when they’re done w/you.
Clients that want you to sign an onerous NDA before they’ll tell you anything. I’m all for NDAs, but if you can’t explain the basics to me w/out one that signals you either don’t trust me or will be a total PITA. Either way…
Clients that ask you to do trade-out for their product/service or equity. I’m a developer not an investor. Also, this tells me that you don’t have any money and couldn’t convince anyone to give you any.
Projects that I don’t feel will be successful. I want a challenge as well as something that I’m proud to point out when I’m done. I also want to be able to point to it in 6 months to a year and have the client doing well and still be in business.
On June 6th, 2008 at 11:59 am Robert Dempsey said:
Great additions Chris, thanks.
On June 15th, 2008 at 5:09 am Leon Bogaert said:
@Chris Scott: I think your last point is tricky. After all, you’re not an investor.
We have a customer that was going to sell herbs/spices via a website. I thought it would be a total failure. ‘ Cause after all, who buys spices from a website?
But now, a year later, it’s a big success!
On June 16th, 2008 at 9:09 am Chris Schultz said:
Great post, and I agree, the notion of taking equity for investment is just one that takes careful consideration.
Here are some others that we consider:
* is the project from scratch, or have framework or architecture decisions already been made leading to “lock-in”
* what is the ongoing relationship? is the project likely to require maintenance? is the client willing to commit to a reasonable contract for that or do they want to be free and clear but be able to call you any time they need a “tweak”