scott wrote:
> Well of course if you think your project is only going to take 1-2 
> months to complete you are not going to spend 3 weeks planning it :-)

It's not that. It's the boss asking "will this take 3 months or 4 months" 
and you say "It'll take me 3 hours to figure that out" and the answer is 
"that's too long..."  IME, he's usually on the phone with the customer when 
he asks, assuming he even asks before making a promise. :-)

> Well yes, that seems a little over the top for simply getting an 
> estimate of the time needed to design and implement the thing.

Not when you're charging the client what you hope is $250/hour, and you 
don't want to be off by a couple dozen hours in your estimate, thereby 
losing several thousand dollars on the job.

It's hard to get an *accurate* estimate before you know what you want. It's 
the whole "how much does the house cost to build?"   "Show me the 
blueprints."  "We don't want to buy blueprints before we know if we can 
afford the house."

> In our business the requirements change way quicker than we can 
> implement them, it's always a case of going back to the customer and 
> saying "ok this change will delay the schedule by X weeks and cost you 
> Y".  Then there is usually some negotiation and we come to an agreement 
> of what to do.

And during the negotiation, are you re-doing the estimates? While sitting in 
the meeting with the client?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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