The typical freelancer spends his or her energy on the technical craft–writing coding, design UI, creating plugins, etc. Yet the most important skill for your success and livelihood is pricing. By learning to price well, you can be selective about your customers and the type of work you do. And, you can actually work less […]
Value Pricing vs. Agile Development with Wes McClure – 005
The purpose of agile development is to create software successfully by adapting to changes during the development cycle. Unfortunately in practice, agile can wander from the outcome the customer needs. Wes McClure believes a commitment to value and agile development can coexist when you combine a strategic objective that does not change with flexibility in the […]
Four Steps to Determine Value and Start Pricing from WordCamp DFW
In October 2014, I had the opportunity to present a session at WordCamp DFW 2014 called Four Steps to Determine Value and Start Pricing. Even though the overhead projector was not working, we had a great session on the four steps to implement value pricing including Q&A.
Why Value Is Important for Software with Wes McClure – 004
Since software development is a technical craft, it is easy to focus on the details instead of the big picture. However, failure to focus on why the project is important can doom the endeavor before it starts. By starting with the value to customer, software development has a higher chance of success because every action […]
The Value of Project Management with Ed Kless – 002
What is the essential ingredient for a successful project? You may be surprised to learn it is having a value conversation. In fact, Ed Kless says you can get so good at having a value conversation that project management becomes irrelevant. Before a project begins, you need to ask the customer why the project is important and what success looks like.
Why I Switched to Value Pricing with Kirk Bowman – 001
In the fall of 2009, I participated in a panel discussion on estimating and billing practices for software developers. I took the position that hourly billing is the only way to charge the customer for custom development. At the same time, another panelist said that billing by the hour places an arbitrary limit on your […]
Value-Based Pricing from Pause OnError
In February 2010, I gave a presentation at the Pause OnError conference in Portland. I explained the advantages of value pricing to a room of 50+ software developers and facilitated an open discussion. If you look closely, you can actually see someone sitting in the bath tub to listen.