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Hi folks,

I’ve been running into a timeline issue lately and would appreciate any insight on how to handle it. I have some ideas on how to prevent it in the future, but I’m curious how others are approaching this challenge.

Here’s the scenario:

1. We get a site ready for client review and content entry, hitting all our milestones laid out in the contract as close as possible
2. The client is provided with an orientation/training session on how to use their EE site
3. We send a final invoice
4. The client then stalls out and the staging site receives little attention for weeks or months on end, delaying launch of the site and wrapping up the project

Step 4, where the client stalls out, introduces a lot of efficiency and eventually whittles away at the fixed budget for the project. Not every client we work with has this problem, but enough that it starts to create a backlog of un-launched sites that require support and start to interfere with new projects.

What do you do to prevent or mitigate this problem?

The first step would seem to be to define a deadline for the client to finish up with content entry and any adjustments to the staging site. But what do you do when that deadline is blown? I’m thinking we just transition to an hourly rate for all work (regardless of whether that work was part of the original project scope or not). And possibly including a monthly flat fee for keeping the project open beyond deadline.

Do you have any other suggestions? What works for you?

If the client is placing their own content into the site and has had training then it’s really down to them to get on with their part of the job.

I would make that clear (in a nice way of course) as you will have done everything you can do for the site and you need to make them realise that you should be paid as you have done everything stated in your part of the contract and then if because they stall with placing the content online and need more help after you’ve already shown them how to do it then make them realise that this would entail more cost to them as you had already given them the required training.

Myself personally I will show clients physically how to administer their site but I will also put together screen-cast movies showing how to do everything too so that they can refer back to these movies if they do happen to forget how to do something. I’ll normally create a weblog / channel for these movies and any textual documentation and then place a link on their main site navigation which is only viewable by admin members that are logged in so that they can easily get to this information.

If you had a timeline and had in a contract that all your work had been completed on time and the only thing that is now holding up the site is the client then at the outset of creating a contract they need to be made aware of this fact that you have done all your work and now it is up to them.

Don’t know if that helps at all but that’s the general gist of what I do with contracts that require this sort of work.

Best wishes,

Mark

Hi, Mark. Thanks for the reply.

Those suggestions make a lot of sense. We are already sending a final invoice when the training session is completed and are also delivering documentation. I think the missing piece is that we’re not setting a firm deadline on content-entry in the contract, even though we set deadlines for earlier milestones. I think we’ll also need to state in the contract that we will switch to an hourly rate after that deadline.

Anyone else have thoughts on how to manage delays and stalled-out staging sites?

My contracts outline the development process up until the site is “Production-Ready”.  We then put a statement in there about what that means, essentially that we are completed with site development and the last piece of filling in content is up to them.  We bill them their final bill when the site is at that point, with the clause that we will still run through the checklist of making the site live when they are ready.  We also spell out that any work done past this point is at our hourly rate except for the actual launch, which we limit to a certain number of hours of work (varies depending on what needs to happen to go live).  We also have an “Assumptions” section of the contract that states that they will be responsible for content entry, including images and text.  With all that in place, it’s usually pretty clear that we are done when we hand over the keys to the site for them to update everything. 

That being said, I still put in a couple of hours after that which I don’t charge them for, stuff like helping them when they get stuck, and minor adjustments.  By doing that, they end up really loving us for throwing in some extra time and care, but they understand that it is extra and we could charge them for it.  If it gets out of control, we simply pull the terminology out of the contract and ask for approval to be paid for the extra hours that their new request will take. 

I’ve never had problems with that approach.  On occasion I get a client writing to apologize for not launching within the few weeks that they had intended.  In all honesty, I don’t care when they launch, I’ve been paid and am working on other stuff.

Thanks for the reply, Ryan. That sounds like a good approach and similar to what I am striving for currently. I think I just need to provide better framing and terminology around the final stage of the project so that expectations are a little easier to manage.

A few suggestions came my way via Twitter which were aslo helpful:
- Set a content preparation deadline for the client that coincides with site development start date.
- A missed client deadline will result in a shift in the timeline and a rescheduling fee.

Ooh, those are good ones.  I’ll have to think about implementing them, especially a the one about the missed client deadline. Thanks for sharing!