Clients are grinding me down...
Out of context: Reply #19
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- jtb260
Vaxorcist, I know what you mean. Mantrakid is right, but when you have a broad set of goals rather than a clear cut deliverable it can be tough to draw up a accurate proposal that won't be subject to frequent change orders. As priorities shift and out of scope items are requested constantly writing up change orders can be a burden to the project. There is a better way for this type of work.
Rather than a proposal that details specific deliverables or milestones, when working on projects that are run agile it's possibly better to bill against effort instead of deliverables. It's akin to working hourly - but I'd simplify it to a price per week or month (you might need to specify how many hours a week they get in return). You are being deployed against an outcome, the client can change priorities all they want. The client is required to assume a little more risk here, but that's the price of having an open-ended project. It requires they, or at least you have good project management skills as well.
If they want a fixed bid then you need to get them to agree to a comprehensive requirements gathering process. In this case charge them a small fixed price for a discovery phase. Take a week or two to figure out everything they want in Version 1. Then give them a proposal for how much it'll cost to do that. Issue change orders to the proposal as they request new or out of scope features.