What do you do when the deadline is too close?

[Krisztian Gulyas]

Have you ever been in a situation when the deadline is too close but you just started rendering the final image/video and it wont be done by the time you need to send it to the client? - Probably you were.

What do you do then? How do you tell the client that it's not going to be finished by tomorrow, but they have to wait one more day?

 

Yesterday was a close one for me. I just finished the video in time (actually a few hours after the deadline), but I'm curious what do you do when you simply cannot finish it in time and you have to tell them they have to wait one more day!?

[CliveG]

... but I'm curious what do you do when you simply cannot finish it in time and you have to tell them they have to wait one more day!?

 

Well -I guess you tell them they have to wait one more day....

 

Most of my work is in the Design & Build market, so ALL of my deadlines are too close.

 

But there is no magic wand to be waved, what you can't solve by forgoing sleep in the production phase, and what you can't foresee and head off with buying in more processing power via a farm or friends in the "watch it rendering" phase, you have to do exactly what you've already said, get on the phone and explain to your client that you've screwed up.

 

The real answer to your issue (not your question) is to make sure you see these things coming and head them off before you have to make that difficult phone call.

 

Try and imagine that, like a pizza delivery, your agreement with the client is for delivery "on time or you get it for free" .... I'm pretty sure you'd make sure you had worked out exactly how much time rendering was going to take and then given yourself some more wriggle room on top of that.

 

As I've mentioned elsewhere, most client I've ever encountered value your reliability as much or more than the ultimate quality of your work. When your doing what you promise without giving them anxiety, they're happy and probably less concerned about the quality of your glossy reflections!

[Stephen Thomas]

It's also very important to set reasonable cutoff dates for design information and make clients aware of the repercussions of missing these dates to ensure you stay on schedule. In other words, you can accept design tweaks up to a certain date, beyond that any changes may have a cost implication or mean changing the deadline.

 

On the flip-side though, if you are the one who has let things slip or misjudged things then I guess you have to be prepared to either get help in at your own cost, or if that's not an option, then come clean to the client. I think the earlier you can do that the better, they may not like it but I think most would appreciate an upfront approach that allows them to possibly re-arrange presentations or meetings if necessary.

[Krisztian Gulyas]

The client changed thing 3 times. Created a preview animation, then I needed to change something, then created a preview, than change (small things again)... I got two more days to finish it, but it was close one. We agreed at fixed price, so I didnt want to ask for more, but after the third preview I told him that if he wants to change something again, that will cost more and then he accepted the third version.

 

When do you tell a client that he asks too much? How many times do you change things, re-render... before you tell them that with another change it'll cost more?

[Scott Schroeder]

What is in your contract for change orders? That's what you rely on. What did you discuss in the opening meeting about change orders? All of that needs to be put out before work is started so nothing becomes a surprise later on down the line.

 

Fixed price = fixed changes. For me, usually it's minor things like colors or camera paths and they only get one round of them. Anything else or anything that involves design or structural changes is an extra cost unless specified in the work agreement.