[consulting] Failed Outsourcing Job

[Trevor Twining]

+1 for Andy's advice. Best post on the thread.


On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 10:06 AM, Andrew Hawks <andy at civicactions.com>wrote:

> A lot of timeless lessons to be learned from this age-old situation:
>
> 1. As a client you get what you pay for. As a contractor you pay for what
> you get.
> 2. As both contractor and client, protect yourself with a good contract.
> Have all contracts reviewed by your lawyer.
> 3. As a contractor, take on work you have the time, skill, dedication and
> passion to complete. As a client, seek out work you have the time, skill,
> budget and passion to manage.
> 4. The first step determines the journey's course. Communicating all known
> and potential/perceived requirements, goals, use cases, and priorities is
> essential especially on fixed-bid work. As client or product owner it's
> your responsible to communicate everything you know up front, as contractor
> it's your responsibility to flush out what the product owner knows, doesn't
> know, and the things they don't know that they don't know.
> 5. Keep communicating daily to further eliminate risk on both sides. Set
> and reset expectations daily as needed.
> 6. Bugs, issues, and unexpected unknowns are the rule, not the exception,
> in all software development. Plan accordingly.
> 7. Be cool and do good. As client and contractor give each other the
> tools, knowledge, attitude, and final results each other needs to be
> successful.
>
> When a project stalls at 80-85% (#6) it's a result of a difference in
> understanding in #4 that hasn't been backed up by #5. As the client you
> have the power to turn that around at every moment. If you seek out a
> different developer, this is now a very damaged project no one would really
> /want/ to work on, and that will add time and cost. As the contractor you
> knew this would be challenge, and you know you wanted the challenge. Rise
> up to that challenge, get it done, and present a product you're proud of.
> Get on the same page, figure out what each other needs to reach 100%
> complete with a smile on both faces.
>
> In the future, there are many professional companies whose primary focus
> is custom Drupal theme development from PSD comps with 2-3 day turnaround
> which can do the job in your price range with functionality like dropdown
> menus.
>
>
>  *Andrew Hawks* | *Tech Lead, **CivicActions*
> Denver, Colorado, USA
> e: andy at civicactions.com | h: 303.953.1303
> skype: andyhawks | http://civicactions.com
> [image: LinkedIn] <http://linkedin.com/in/andyhawks> [image: Doodle.com]<http://doodle.com/andyhawks>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2013 at 6:25 AM, Fred Jones <fredthejonester at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> A question of legality and ethics: I hired an outsourcer (from
>> freelancer.com) to make a D7 theme. The deal was crystal clear that he
>> has until the deadline to finish it 100% or I pay nothing and he
>> agreed to that.
>>
>> He has done about 80-85% of it but no more than that. So I will not
>> pay him and that's that.
>>
>> But he put in download links on the Appearance page and so I
>> downloaded his work and I have it. I could now finish it myself and
>> hire another person to finish it and pay them $100 instead of the $500
>> that he was supposed to get.
>>
>> Question is should I just take it and run because we never clarified
>> who owns anything and he *did* make it downloadable. Or perhaps I
>> should tell him that I will pay him $100 and take his code and if he
>> accepts, then OK.
>>
>> I don't want to continue with him because he clearly can not finish
>> the job--he keeps asking me to review it and the dropdown menus are
>> wrong each time plus 30 other details that he just can't get right.
>>
>> Thanks for any thoughts.
>>
>>
>> Fred
>> _______________________________________________
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>> consulting at drupal.org
>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>>
>
>
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>


-- 
Trevor Twining
skype:trevortwining
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