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Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed

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Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> wrote in
news:Gd3Bq.225$Q83.62@newsfe17.iad: 

> On 11-11-28 01:53 PM, Novice wrote:
>> ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote in news:rate-20111128181722
>> @ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de:
>> 
>>> Novice <novice@example..com> writes:
>>>> Most of my past consulting has been developing websites so
>>>> I'm not sure on several details of how to present and sell
>>>> myself.
>>>
>>>   I think it helps to be able to estimate what you can do and
>>>   what you cannot do and then to communicate this honestly.
>>>
>> That's certainly what I want to do. Sometimes though, I get the 
>> impression that consultants claim to know much more than they
>> actually do and then scramble like mad to do the actual work when
>> they get the job. Sometimes, they rise to the challenge and manage to
>> do an acceptable job. Other times, things don't turn out so well.
> 
> Some consultants - or the consulting bosses who hire them out, if they
> work for a larger consultancy - do skirt the truth, or overly
> embellish, or lie. It's not an ethical or productive thing to do.
> 
> It's always, IMO, abundantly clear in a contract as to what you should
> be knowledgeable about, and how expert you should be on this thing or
> that other thing. And you had best be, because that's the expectation
> of the client.
> 
> General-purpose Java programmers - even consultants - do not tend to
> be experts, and reasonable clients don't expect that. What they do
> expect is journeyman competency. Effectively a client in this scenario
> wants a contractor who will perform at least as well as someone he
> might want to hire FT for the equivalent position. If that equivalent
> position is not that of a technical architect or senior analyst, but
> of an intermediate programmer, then there is not usually an
> expectation that the contractor will have the skills of a senior
> architect (the subject of skills-contract needs mismatch is a whole
> different topic). 
> 
> An example of a mistake one could make is to be knowledgeable in JSF
> only, say, but make out like Spring MVC or Struts 2 won't be a problem
> either. In fact it almost always will be a problem, in the timeframe
> of a typical contract, and you'd be dishonest in letting the client
> believe that you could do a competent job of Spring MVC.
>
Which raises an excellent point. Just what GUI is the best way to go 
these days? The customer wants a desktop application that will run on 
Windows and Mac. I'm mostly familiar with Swing and see no obvious reason 
why it couldn't do the job required by the customer. Would Spring MVC or 
Struts 2 be better? If so, why? 

I'm not sure what the learning curve would be to get up to speed on 
Spring or Struts. I just looked at two  YouTube videos, one on Spring and 
one on Struts and found both pretty dreadful. I'm sure the products are 
good but the videos were very poorly produced with very poor presenters 
with heavy accents and rather unfocused content. They were chock full of 
vague generalities and very skimpy on actual details. I'm optimistic that 
there are better tutorials on both subjects and that I can find those 
better tutorials if they exist but, so far, I'm not clear on when/why 
Spring or Struts would be better than Swing.  

This again raises the question of whether customer should pay me my going 
rate to learn Spring or Struts or whether I should eat the cost of the 
learning?

 
> [ SNIP ]
>>>
>> Based on the other reply to my question, I'm thinking $40/hr is a
>> good rate to propose, although I'm inclined to mention that it is
>> negotiable. Or would that be assumed by the customer? 
> 
> In North America, for general-purpose Java work done by an
> intermediate-level programmer, $40/hr is pretty good for your
> take-home. I'd add $10-$20 to cover contractor overhead.
>
Markspace suggests doubling $40/hr to $80/hr. I'm tempted to do that 
given the cost of buying benefits and so forth....
 
> My recommendations are based entirely on your stated level of
> experience, the probable nature of the work, the fact that your
> overhead very likely doesn't include upkeep on a bricks-and-mortar
> consultancy office, things like that.
> 
> The client will never negotiate _up_. :-)
> 
>> Also, once I quote a price like that, is it assumed that the rate
>> covers all of my expenses? For instance, if the customer requests to
>> meet in person at his office, do I simply charge that rate for the
>> time it takes me to get to his office and pay for the gas out of
>> that? Or would he expect to pay the hourly rate PLUS actual
>> out-of-pocket gas expense (or a fixed rate like 50 cents a mile?) I'm
>> embarassed that I don't know this already but I just want to be sure
>> that I don't cause myself trouble by doing things in a manner that he
>> will consider unprofessional. 
>> 
> Your rate covers usual travel, as a rule. We're not talking about air
> travel here. If the contract *work* entails travel, that's a different
> matter.
> 
The customer is not in the same city as I am. A commute of up to two 
hours (one way) would be necessary to go to their offices each time. I'm 
hoping he doesn't object to me from working from home regularly but I'm 
not sure what the normal expectation is for commuting from out of town. 
If I was a fulltime employee, I'd be expected to eat the cost of the trip 
and not get paid for the commute time either. As a contractor, would the 
customer expect me to bill for time or gas or both? 


-- 
Novice

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Thread

General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-28 15:41 +0000
  Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Jeff Higgins <jeff@invalid.invalid> - 2011-11-28 11:37 -0500
    Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-28 17:04 +0000
      Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed markspace <-@.> - 2011-11-28 11:09 -0800
        Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-28 19:48 +0000
          Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed markspace <-@.> - 2011-11-28 12:14 -0800
            Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Rhino <no.offline.contact.please@example.com> - 2011-11-28 21:28 +0000
              Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed markspace <-@.> - 2011-11-28 14:14 -0800
                Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-29 05:24 +0000
                Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-11-29 20:44 +0000
  Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-28 17:53 +0000
    Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-28 19:52 +0000
    Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-11-29 07:20 -0400
      Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-29 16:06 +0000
        Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-11-29 12:04 -0800
          Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-30 00:12 +0000
            Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2011-11-29 22:02 -0800
              Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-30 20:28 +0000
  Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-11-28 10:03 -0800
    Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-11-28 10:44 -0800
      Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-28 20:13 +0000
        Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-11-28 12:59 -0800
      Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-11-29 14:04 -0800
        Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-11-29 15:07 -0800
    Re: General Consulting Advice Urgently Needed Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-28 19:56 +0000

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