During the course of any project, clients request a lot of changes. Most of these are too small to justify a request for a fee increase. Cumulatively, however, they can amount to a lot of effort for your architecture or engineering firm and can kill your budget.
But there’s a way to keep track of and limit small changes without making your clients feel like they’re being “nickel and dimed.”
Start a “Small Change Log” and record every change, no matter its size or effect, along with the amount of time and/or money it took to make the adjustments.
Once a substantial number of these items have been accumulated, as part of a project status update, show the log to clients and tell them:
“You have requested all of these changes since we began the project. As you can see, they are very small, individually, but cumulatively amount to quite a bit of costs for our firm.
“Our firm believes in going beyond what is contractually required; we strive to provide our clients with outstanding service. So we won’t charge you for any of these changes.
“However, my contingency for these small changes is now depleted, so I am going to have to ask you for a change order for future small changes. How can we set up a mechanism to handle such things in a way that minimizes your administrative work?”
It should be done in a spirit of cooperation. Even if clients tell you that they have no funds for future changes, at least you have put them on record that you are watching these very closely. You can then offer offsets in other tasks to pay for these.
About the Author: David Burstein is a consultant with PSMJ and frequently speaks and writes on matters such as strategic planning, marketing, project management, human resources, corporate finance, and ownership transition. He can be reached at dburstein@psmj.com.
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