The number everyone wants
The first question on almost every call is how long it will take and what it will cost. The honest answer, before we have seen the problem, is a range. Twelve to sixteen weeks. Ninety to a hundred and thirty thousand euros.
Clients sometimes hear a range as a hedge. It is the opposite. A single number hides everything we do not know yet, and it is usually the low end of the range with the uncertainty quietly removed.
What a range tells you
- What we know. The low end is the product as we understand it today, built by a team that has done it before.
- What we do not. The width is the unknowns: an integration nobody has documented, a regulator, a decision that has not been made yet.
- What would move it. Every range comes with a short list of the things that would push it up or down, so you can decide which ones to resolve first.
A precise estimate made too early is a promise nobody can keep.
How it narrows
After the scope week the range usually halves. After the prototype it halves again. By week four we give a single date for the first release, and we have hit that date on thirty-six of our last forty projects.
