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Comment by homeslike | Hacker News Reader

couple of questions to that:

> * You can win by getting every contract reviewed, or by just signing them blindly

could you elaborate on that? not sure i understand

> * Keep your SOWs vague

that can help you or hurt you, right? i'm working at a big consulting firm and our motto is to write the SOWs as explicitly as possible to prevent scope creep.

> * Don’t do conferences/conventions

why? isn't that a perfect way to stay up to date and network?

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For SOWs, I find that it helps to keep them very explicit about the larger goals and the "why" of the project, but vague on details, and then enter into an agreement where the customer pays you to keep scope at a level where the larger goal and "why" can be accomplished within budget, not into an agreement where the customer controls the scope and you just balloon the budget if they increase it.

I tend to keep my SOWs vague so allow for reprioritization of work and protect myself. I also never write SOWs on basis of outcomes, but as an activity. Ie here is what I will do, but if you decide to not take my advise, don’t blame me if the desired outcomes aren’t delivered. This makes a big difference when chasing up invoices.

I read that Alan Weiss preferred to keep SOW detailed so that the client cannot give you extra work during the scope that was not the initial focus due to the vagueness.

>> You can win by getting every contract reviewed, or by just signing them blindly

> could you elaborate on that? not sure i understand

Not the OP, but what I think they mean is that the time or money spent to review contracts just about pays for itself: if you spend a lot of time reviewing contracts or a lot of money having them reviewed by professionals, you may save some money some of the time, but if you just sign contracts after a cursory glance you will probably come out even just the same, on average.

We reviewed everything, but large competitors of ours did almost the opposite, and they were fine. If it was me, I'd get everything reviewed, but apparently it's just a school of thought.

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