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At the September 23rd meeting of the Bay Area Consultants Network, the Members’ Forum returned to the topic of how to deal with “scope creep”—those jobs which expand far beyond their original scope—particularly when the client doesn’t want to pay for the additional work. Here are a few of the suggestions.

• Explain the situation in terms which are familiar to the client. For instance, one member had a client in the construction industry who wanted to shift the scope of the project midway through. When she compared this to a change order from one of his clients, he understood immediately and stopped objecting.
• To prevent scope creep, start out with a clear statement of work which includes something about how to address changes. Expect to have to mention that clause four or five times before the client will really get it.
• If you prefer one-page, plain-language agreements a la Alan Weiss, include a very short list of objectives and respond to any additional requests by saying “I’ll be happy to do that, but there’s an additional fee.”
• One member found himself in a situation where the more he dug, the more he found. What he said to his client was “We’re hitting things but it’s not what we agreed: why don’t you just put me on a monthly retainer?” She agreed and he now has carte blanche to do what he needs to do for her benefit.
• It’s important to make sure up front that you identify the key stakeholders and decision makers up front and involve them on a timely basis. If they’re with you as you’re moving into these new areas, they’ll see that the scope is changing and be more accomodating about expanding fee or putting it on a second tier (new project) while keeping the original project on target.
• Frame changes in scope in terms of tradeoffs. One member took this approach when dealing with Alameda County: “Sure, we can do this, but you understand that time comes out of all the other stuff we’ve booked and built. What do you want to trade for it?” The county created a subsidiary contract to cover the additions.
• Try to anticipate the places where clients will fall down on their obligations and list these as aggressively priced options during the contracting phase. (The aggressive pricing is recommended for things that you really don’t want to do.) If adding the options delays completion, that’s okay, but the member who recommended this makes it clear that his payments are still due on schedule.
• Understand your client’s contracting process very completely. If possible, learn how they do their other contracting, e.g. with their own clients.
• A lot of clients think they they know what their needs are and confuse their needs with their wants. This is a worse problem with larger clients: large companies try to squeeze everything they can out of a vendor.
• One way to handle this tendency on the part of large companies is to get the client’s staff to do the parts of the job you don’t want to do yourself. One BACN member describes this delegation as a staff mentoring service for her clients.

The remainder of the September 23 Forum was dedicated to collecting a list of recommended reading, which can now be found on the Suggested Reading page.

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Anne Fisher’s recent Fortune column on “Business Buzzwords That Make You Gag” is a reminder that we all need to monitor our use of jargon, especially when we’re talking to people outside our field.

When you’ve been marinating in a particular discipline for a long time, however, your own jargon become invisible to you. So how can you tell whether something you’ve written for the press or the public will be comprehensible?

Enter Bullfighter, a Microsoft Word plugin first developed by Deloitte Consulting. It’s been taken over by FightTheBull.com, publishers of Why Business People Speak Like Idiots (also available as an audiobook).

Bullfighter is freeware, designed for use on Windows XP with Microsoft Word 2002 or above. Download, install, and reboot your computer. Next time you open Word, you’ll see the Bullfighter toolbar. When you click on the “Bullfighter” button, the program runs a “bull check,” similar to a spelling check, which highlights bull words and gives you explanations of why they’re problematic, along with the option to change them to plain-English words. You can also find out what the “Bull Index” of a given document is. And you can add new bull words as they get coined.

If you provide consumer products and services or work with people outside your own field, you’ll do yourself a big favor by using certified bull-free marketing copy. Download Bullfighter today.

For continuous commentary on bull trends, check out the Bull Blog .

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I’m not a web developer, but I’ve done my own web design and written my own HTML since 1995. (Well, in 1995, anyone who could create a basic static web page was a web developer.)

Web design has long since outstripped my capabilities (and the time I can devote to it). I don’t do Flash, Java, ASP, DHTML, server-side includes, or any of those advanced, programmer-like things. But I still do my own websites, and a few for other people.

Fortunately for people like me, there’s Sitepoint.com. The Australian company’s slogan is “Empowering web developers since 1997.” Sitepoint’s articles, books, blogs, and forums are a terrific place to learn how to improve your website, from CSS layouts to Search Engine Optimization to running a web design business. One of the best things about the site is the opportunity to download free sample chapters from books like Firefox Secrets and The CSS Anthology.

These books are so clear and comprehensible that even I can understand them, and they enabled me to customize the appearance of my blogs and to set up the new Author-izer website with CSS-based layout.

Sitepoint’s commitment to plain English instruction is a rare and welcome thing in the world of high tech.

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