Shoutout to the client who taught me a hard lesson about scope creep

I was in a video call with a local bakery client in Portland last month when they asked for 'just one more revision' to their landing page... I agreed without charging extra and it turned into 14 extra hours of work over the next week. Has anyone else had a single small request blow up into a nightmare?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_mary4d ago

Wait, 14 extra hours for "one more revision"?!!

spencer_coleman4d ago

Had a buddy agree to "a small tweak" that ate his whole weekend for free.

ryan_shah384d ago

People always forget "small tweak" is programmer code for "completely redo the whole thing from scratch" ... the feature request sounds simple but they never realize the backend changes it requires. Your buddy probably spent three hours just untangling old code before he could even start on the tweak itself. The worst part is when they say it'll take "an hour or two" and then you're still fighting with it at midnight on Sunday. Free weekend labor really hurts more when you realize a proper estimate would have been a paid full week of work. At least he knows now to always ask for detailed specs before saying yes to anything labeled "small.