Raw Notes:

Software business so younger than other businesses that have been around a lot longer, construction

Have to schedule in black boxes that you know time goes in but who knows comes out, grey areas

Sales pipeline, have to take a guess

Ideally measuring business on a constant basis

Try to do a good postmortem on the project

Goal your getting to is unknown Break it down to known parts Scalability getting impacted Set budget, give flex Under promise and over deliver External factors that are out of our control, not your fault but have to deal with now

Buffer time  Contingencies  Clauses  Share risk  Get skin in the game   How to fail successfully at stuff

Gut feeling Focussed on getting shit done Take the hit and get it done, then move on from 

Don’t see a beta hotel?

Discovery phase  Ballpark range before discovery  Current site structure  Rfp  Rfp pitch not a deliverable

Suck it up or communicate to client Communicate early with client Discovery phase no longer than two weeks  Aren’t as unusual as used to be  Can I do this in the defined time  Really close between estimate  10/15 percent accuracy  Normally for flat fees  Account for current state  Have to put in notion of change management

Dependent on change how it will impact on time and cost

How to help get better pricing  Record everything  Rerun later and find out how estimates were wrong afterwards

Level of trust

Discovery 1-2 hr process workshop Not meant to make you money Made to make sure you don’t lose everything

Identify external dependencies  Usually has to go thru it’s own sign off within the client

Got to have a parachute Be transparent On same page

Difficult ones just walk away Need to know who approval people are and timeframe

Who’s doing the estimates  Architect and project manager  Bop up on 40% estimate on all junior devs  Tech estimate alone then bring in to group to discuss based on what they understand, etc

People are optimistic

Wrong based on Lack of experience

Everything changes when you start building Have to give estimates just for communication

Greenfield side, month to month

Assessing client, are they ones who like to change their mind often New tech?