Questions tagged [contracts]

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Time & Material project contract - how to handle blockers during project execution

Imagine you are a consulting company and you have T&M contract based project. You aligned with the customer to provide consultants to work on a 4days/week schedule. The project is facing an issue ...
Marcin Sanecki's user avatar
1 vote
4 answers
191 views

Do project managers negotiate contracts with clients?

It looks pretty reasonable that a person who manages the project should be involved in this project right from the start and clearly understands all the conditions of doing business with a client, ...
Daniel's user avatar
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14 votes
6 answers
4k views

Managing R&D projects that don't have a 100% chance of success

I have to do a quote for a contract work with a small company to do an AI task on images (classification, pattern recognition with specific conditions). With "classic" programming tasks, you ...
jontwo's user avatar
  • 141
0 votes
1 answer
91 views

ISO 9001: a company does not store the customer contracts properly. What ISO requirement is being violated?

As a part of my quality improvement activities, I wanted to fix some of the issues in our company (like contracts not being stored properly). I thought there will be a clear requirement/clause in ISO ...
John V's user avatar
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2 votes
4 answers
644 views

When we offer a price to client, do we need to explain it?

Let's suppose we're talking about companies that perform some work for customers. This work is usually considered to be a project and is done on a contract basis. I'm mostly interested in contract ...
Daniel's user avatar
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0 votes
4 answers
121 views

The relation between a project and a contract

Let's suppose we're talking about companies that perform some work for customers. This work is usually considered to be a project and is done on a contract basis. It's natural to assume that any ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
1 vote
1 answer
230 views

After which PMBoK process do we sign a contract?

PMBoK begins with developing a Project Charter, then proceeds with stakeholders identification, collecting requirements, etc. Below is the excerpts from PMBoK's 4.1 Develop Project Charter: The ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
2 votes
3 answers
194 views

Effect of front-loading tasks on project schedule

Customer wanted to re-prioritize activities and move them up the schedule. This will result in some tasks being carried out in parallel. To avoid over-allocating my resources, we have recommended to ...
Wahini's user avatar
  • 23
0 votes
1 answer
100 views

When does a software vendor (fixed-price projects) usually get paid?

What is a usual approach to fixed-price software project payment? Does a vendor get the money after the result of the project is delivered to a customer? Or is the payment made upfront? Or a mixed ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
0 votes
3 answers
433 views

What contract type to use when the scope is largely defined (but NOT completely)?

The fixed-price contract is generally used when the scope of the project is clearly defined. The T&M contract is generally used when the scope of the project can't be clearly defined (a customer ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
1 vote
5 answers
164 views

How a software development contract is concluded?

Let's suppose a customer wants to create a software product and there is a software development company that is able to develop this product. They need to create a contract. But both sides has their ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
4 votes
2 answers
159 views

How a PM can manage the contract aspects for Scrum projects with outcome-based pricing?

Outcome-based pricing is becoming more popular in software development. And Scrum is applicable to such projects. How a PM can manage the contract aspects for such project types?
Daniel's user avatar
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1 vote
3 answers
138 views

Is Scrum applicable to projects with outcome-based pricing?

Scrum is very good when you manage a T&M project. But what about projects where you are paid for features or tasks done? Is Scrum applicable to projects with outcome-based pricing?
Daniel's user avatar
  • 2,729
2 votes
3 answers
344 views

Business requirements and a fixed price contract

A new customer asks us to develop a complex software product (in time and on budget). They provided us with business requirements. These business requirements is a text logically devided into (un-...
Chris Brettini's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
144 views

Are consultants paid for abandoning project?

I'm a PhD student and I'm new to Management StackExchange. I'm researching on the kind of contracts that are designed for consultants, and I had a few generic questions about them. Since there is a ...
A. Pant's user avatar
  • 13
2 votes
2 answers
683 views

How to Handle a Funding Overrun on a Time and Materials (T&M) Contract

Here is the scenario: You are the PM of a new T&M contract that has a $800,000 budget at completion (BAC) and a price of $1,000,000 and a one-year period of performance (POP). Scope is fluid, ...
David Espina's user avatar
  • 37.1k
0 votes
3 answers
130 views

How to deal with customer (dis)satisfaction and formal agreements amidst large rotation in small teams?

Working in outsourcing model I wonder what are your experiences with fluctuation on vendor's team level. Assuming smaller teams (up to 20 people) when team rotation on vendor's side reaches e.g. 30% ...
Arek's user avatar
  • 133
0 votes
3 answers
62 views

Working with Freelancers [closed]

I have had two bad experiences with freelancers on different websites which ended up in bad terms The first freelancer refused to complete the job saying that he has been doing work for more than the ...
Faez abdulkarem's user avatar
1 vote
4 answers
384 views

Cone of uncertainty - how could we delay commitment to estimates in real life?

I am reading a book from Steve McConnell dealing with software project estimations and I do not understand the following statement (my translation, I got the book in German): An effective ...
John V's user avatar
  • 363
1 vote
2 answers
6k views

What are differences between Cost Plus Award Fee and Cost Plus Incentive Fee Contract?

Both Cost Plus Award Fee and Cost Plus Incentive Fee contract types are Cost Reimbursable contracts in which the seller is reimbursed for completed work plus a fee representing profit. In the PMBOK ...
Ashutosh Deshmukh's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
276 views

How to manage consulting resources to deliver ahead of delivery dates?

I am a PM for a large matrix enterprise organization that has internal development resources as well as contracted consulting groups. Depending on the project we may need to engage an application team ...
Shawn's user avatar
  • 256
12 votes
6 answers
1k views

How do I convice clients that we should use Agile and how should we charge for it

We are a small company working in web development. I like Agile and I tend to use it within my team. The issue is: usually, clients need to get quoted with a lump sum of their project that will not ...
Muhammad ElNahas's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
763 views

Are Agile Project Deliverables Generally Tied To Stage Payments?

Do software developers operating under some sort of agile development cycle and presenting a series of 'deliverables' to their customer generally expect—or contract—their clients to make a stage ...
Trunk's user avatar
  • 171
4 votes
3 answers
342 views

In Scrum, should we be billed for defects and unplanned activities?

My company is the client. An offshore company is developing our product. We pay them on a monthly basis. They send us an invoice with a fixed rate per full time resource. They also send us a ...
SaryA's user avatar
  • 41
3 votes
4 answers
2k views

How should a project manager handle a request for contracted software to produce twice as many reports as specified in the project's requirements?

I have joined a late-phase software project and there is a great deal of disagreement between my management and the client about work items they are claiming to be outstanding. In short, our business ...
Brian R's user avatar
  • 181
0 votes
3 answers
358 views

How to plan for fixed bid during contract time?

During Contract time, we are given requirement details and we dont have stories. If we have to go for fixed bid contract, do we create stories at time? I doubt - as no one has time at contract stage ...
UserA's user avatar
  • 1
6 votes
3 answers
1k views

Delays in getting project sign off

I'm facing a challenging situation with one of my clients. We completed the project as planned in 4 months and now the next step is the project deployment at his site. The problem is his site is not ...
Yehia A.Salam's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
156 views

How do you ensure your code does not get stolen when working with a remote contractor? [closed]

Recently in order to expand our products, we have had to bring in external contractors, especially those working remotely. Some of the tasks involve porting an existing application on one platform to ...
strangetimes's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
150 views

How to finish FP project when change requests are not finishing

We have got the situation when our FP project is running over the time without visible end date. The initial agreed scope is accomplished so we would like to release the team. However the customer ...
HappyPM's user avatar
  • 129
3 votes
3 answers
2k views

Failed to finish project in time, now threatened with UK court [closed]

I wonder if anyone has experience and can help with some advise. I am a programmer with 15 years of experience, and I feel it is unfair what is happening to me. I was silly enough to sign a ...
freelancer uk's user avatar
5 votes
5 answers
935 views

Committing the Product Owner to a sprint backlog with a contract

A short introduction to the question: I'm a Scrum Master in a small web development organization (10 employees) and we do a lot of projects that'll last for 3 or 4 sprints, with an average duration of ...
smelly586's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
1k views

Should a Statement of Work (SOW) include "coding style" under the Client Obligations section?

I am hiring a contracting firm to rewrite a small application for my group. The dev team is going to be a single person. Based on past experiences with other developers, I'm concerned that the code ...
patrickmdnet's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
1k views

Firm Fixed Price Contracts and Binding the Work

For scope that is reasonably explicit, many customers choose to purchase services under a firm fixed price contract in order to remove cost risk. It is essentially transferring risk to the seller as ...
David Espina's user avatar
  • 37.1k
1 vote
1 answer
868 views

PMBOK 4th Edition - Monitor and Control Project Work versus other Control Processes, what are the differences?

Are there any significant differences between "Monitor and Control Project Work" process versus other control processes e.g., control scope, control schedule, control cost, perform quality control? ...
Hairul's user avatar
  • 61
6 votes
5 answers
311 views

Is including "communication" aspects in formal agreements with clients critical to have?

We all know that in management, the communication with the client (product owner or sponsor) is one of the key factors. It's good when both sides understand the communication aspect. However, from ...
Zbigniew Kawalec's user avatar
8 votes
11 answers
574 views

Trust issues with a client

I've been negotiating recently with a client who is... well... a bit difficult to work with, to say the least. He was the first to contact me and request my services. He wants me to build an ...
user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
147 views

How to choose and manage a sales team that are given great flexibility?

I have come to a situation where I have to choose around 10 individuals to do sales for our company. A salesman per department (e.g electronic, cosmetic and so on). My concern is that the salesman ...
Rick Rhodes's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
309 views

Who should bear the cost of upgrade? Client or Provider?

We are in the middle of developing iPhone app. iOS 5 is recently released. Now if we run the same codes in iOS 5 we get lot of errors / crashes. Should we charge the client to get the code ...
meetpd's user avatar
  • 1,085
9 votes
7 answers
1k views

Project cancelled, still client wants to use parts of it?

After four prototypes on a mailshot design, the client is now telling me that the project is going to be cancelled. Because a lot of work was involved, I submitted an updated "cost estimate" (in this ...
jackJoe's user avatar
  • 345