Me and my friend set up a software company recently,
and my first project is to develop a software for my friend's company,
the project was estimated to be completed in 1 month,
but I took 3 months to complete the project.
After reviewed my project development progress,
I realize that root cause is due to I didn't analyze the project in detail,
so I only estimate total man hour required base on
project main features instead of detail functions.
Few days ago, he gave me another project, and this time I wanted to
analyze the project in detail before I start to estimate total man hour required,
but when I look at the requirement specification, I think it will take me
2 to 3 weeks just to analyze the project. I can charge the analysis fee
because my friend is the shareholder.
If I get a project from a customer, and if the project may take
me 2 to 3 weeks to analyze the project in detail, how can I charge my
customer for the detail analysis?
In current software development market, software company can not start project
before customer agree on the estimated man hour. If I do not take 3 weeks to
analyze a project in detail, I may end up with losing money due to under
estimate the project. If I take 3 weeks to analyze a project in detail,
but the customer think the project is too expensive,
and do not want to proceed, my time will be wasted.