Scope & change control

Fixed prices are only honest if scope is honest. Projects change — a competitor ships something, a regulation lands, an integration turns out worse than documented. Change control is the mechanism that absorbs this without burying you in surprise invoices or grinding the project into renegotiation.

• Anyone — your side or ours — can raise a change request in writing.
• Within three business days you get an impact note: effect on cost, schedule, and any milestone already in flight.
• Nothing is built and nothing is billed until you approve the impact note in writing.
• Small changes that fit inside milestone slack are absorbed free and noted in the sprint summary.

If something costs more than we estimated and the scope did not change, that is our problem, not yours — the milestone price stands. This is deliberate: it keeps our incentive on estimating honestly up front rather than discovering "complexity" after you are committed.

Mid-project, a client asked to add SSO support that was not in the original scope. What happened, in order: the request was logged on a Tuesday; Thursday they had the impact note — "SAML SSO via your IdP: +$14,000, +2 weeks to milestone 3, no impact on milestones 1–2; alternative: defer to a post-launch milestone at the same price." They chose to defer. Total ceremony: one written note and one decision. No invoice surprise, no schedule slip discovered later, and the SSO milestone shipped three weeks after launch exactly as quoted.

Compare with the industry default — the work quietly absorbed, the deadline quietly missed, and the relationship quietly damaged. Change control is not bureaucracy; it is the absence of quiet.