Too Many Cooks

[CAD]

We are currently working on a development project for Imax Insurance and we are providing template design, content management, hosting, and template integration for a component provided by Ipipeline.

We initially quoted doing the development of the financial feeds they wanted, but Imax was convinced by a viscious sales person at Ipipeline that they were the only ones who could provide the content they needed.

We modified our quotation accordingly to just take the services provided by Ipipeline, wrap templates around it, and we would not be responsible for its (ipipeline) function or modifications.

The product is called AnnuityPipe Suite and cost Imax $1,295.00 for the license, and an additional $275 per month.

The sales person promised Tom Thomas (Imax) the moon and that this Anuitypipe suite could and would perform all of the functions he needed.

Quitely, in the background, we are putting together web templates, getting signed acceptance of the template design, and have uploaded our seo friendly content management system, and have done the integration necessary for the third party application.

Here is where the problem starts. Tom Thomas has discovered that the Annuitypipe will not display an annuity calculator, nor will it display the top 5 annuities in a feed on the website. Tom is now withholding payment untill we fix the flaw in the third party application that we had nothing to do with. We can not make him understand that we only quoted time to learn how to implement the system and not that we were going to make modifications or guarantee its performance.

What we have discovered is that the sales person that promised him the moon is no longer employed with IPipeline and Ipipeline will not honor the promises made by their long gone salesperson. Tom’s only recourse now is to try to beat us into submission so that we will fix his bad business decision.

Fortunately, our contract reads that all litigation will be handled in Hopkins County, so he will have to come here when we sue him for payment

I am currently turning down websites like this, and I would caution all developers to seriously scrutinize any potential projects that come together like this one.

I would also like to know if anyone else has had any experiences like this. Please post them or your thoughts below about this situation.

[charlie]

I certainly feel your pain.

During my tenure as a young web designer for an advertising agency, we were approached for a rather complex web application. Knowing my limitations, we outsourced the programming to a local firm specializing in this sort of project and kept the design in house.

The client was admittedly lacking tech savvy and was concerned about consulting with the contractor, so I agreed to be their "translator."

We held three meetings with four members of the client's organization... all via conference call. Needless to say, expectations for the application were never completely clear and understood.

The project, literally, spanned a year in planning and spent three months in conception. During my meetings with the contractor, I described what I'd interpreted as the client's needs and the contractor implemented these to the best of their understanding.

As you may have guessed, the client was less than pleased with the product, because (in my professional opinion) they never knew what they truly wanted. In addition, two tiers of interpretation from a pool of four client opinions makes for some rather cloudy specifications.

I'd been relegated the full project responsibility. Yet, given the situation, I felt executive power was needed and had to complicate the matter further by "translating" for my boss.

In the end, nobody knew what the hell was going on... let alone, when payment would be made, in what capacity and for what features.

To make matters worse, I'd long been planning to move away from the agency and to another town. Even having given almost two months notice... solutions (and my responsibilities) weren't met until well after I'd changed careers and cities, out of guilt and at my own expense. This was a really stressful period for all, as none of us were in direct contact, trying to sort out an insane jumble.

I still don't know what had been decided between the agency and client... but I do know that the contractor was paid in full, with some financial sacrifices being made by our agency.

Sure, we made mistakes... I made a huge mistake in assuming I could "translate" to a functioning capacity... but we did our job, having designed an attractive site. Even though my wage didn't truly suffer from our agency's quote reduction, I still felt it a bit unfair, if impossible to pursue.

My lesson was learned on this project, though... I was an idiot to attempt a go-between on a contractor to client project. I should have pitched in my design and called it a day.

I'd bet we all have similar stories of frustration... they can't teach you everything in school.

[wgoodman]

Third party programming options is like a double sided sword.

On one hand, you don't have to develop the code and you can just mark it up... sweet!

The down side is, if it doesn't function exactly like you want or how your client wants it, you are screwed.

-----------------------

Wayne Goodman, Web Site Design, Search Engine Marketing

New Jersey Mortgage

[Dinghus]

This is a lesson that all of us freelancers have learned hopefully, have a contract. Spell everything out clearly such as not being responsible for 3rd party software/applications unless you know how to set it up etc.

Always have the principles involved. I don't know how many times I've been handed a project that was planned and negotiated by a salesman who didn't know squat about programming and been told to "make it happen" when I knew it was almost impossible. Somehow I've always made it work tho.

I go in now and find 3rd party software that isn't working and either make it work or find a better solution. I always tell potential clients to consult with me before picking 3rd party apps so I can evaluate them and see if they will work or not on the site. Do they listen? HAH!

My specialty has become making the impossible possible. "If can, can. If no can, still can" :) A little Hawaiian pidgen English for you.

And for us freelancers we should all have legal representatives ready to review contracts, handle nasty legal letters to deadbeat clients, and handle any potential or actual lawsuits. I strongly recommend PrePaid Legal. It is inexpensive and has paid for itself many times over for me and everyone I know who uses it.

[subsystems]

You are mainly dealing with being caught in the middle.

I would pursue a legal complaint against "Imax, The feed provider AND the sales rep by name".
You need to clearly explain in your complaint the difference between “presentation” and “content”. It should also be made clear that you are not getting paid due the feed provider's failure to provide content as promised by their sales rep. By doing this you will force all 3 of the others to settle their differences so you get paid.

I'd say you have a couple of issues to think about.

1. With regard to Imax, is really going to depend on whether or not Imax understood clearly that your company would only be passing along the feed to the website. That is to say, you would provide the presentation (style) and not the feed (content). Imax may only have understood the term “website” as a whole.

2. The feed provider did not perform as promised and Imax has their own contract with the feed provider. This should be a clear flag to a judge that there is a difference between what services you performed and what they performed.

3. The feed provider is also ultimately responsible for their sales people's promises. If the rep. intentionally misrepresented or lied about the feed's capability then a judge may decide to share responsibility with the ex-employee. (Dunno. I'm not an expert in this kind of thing, just working off of principles.) The fact that there are signed contracts between the feed provider and Imax means the feed provider put their stamp of approval on the promises of the sales rep. By having the sales rep. listed on the complaint it will force the feed provider to address the issue with their ex-employee. Their may have been fraud on the part of the rep. that needs to be addressed as well.

I believe a judge will look at the ex-employee and determine if any fraud was involved and treat that separately if needed or even if the ex-employee “can” be held responsible. It may depend on state law.

Next the Judge will decide if the feed provider should be held responsible for promises made by their ex-employee. This will usually be yes especially due to the “stamp of approval” effect.

Lastly, the judge will examine the contract between Imax and the feed provider as well as the contract between your company and Imax. The judge will then decide if you fulfilled your part. Since the failure is with the content and not the presentation, it should be clear to the judge that you met your part and since you had no contract with the feed provider, they are not responsible for paying you. This will force the Imax to address the issue with the feed provider. Hopefully, this will put the feed provider on the hook for not fulfilling what they agreed to and put their stamp on. Then Imax has to choose whether or not to pursue reimbursement from the feed provider.

Just my thoughts but I hope it helps.

[MarcThai]

Communicate, communicate, communicate. The real failure was your inability to communicate clearly. Sure, Imax, the salesman and your client were all wrong too, but as the project implementer you were ultimately responsible.

As subsystems said:

I would pursue a legal complaint against "Imax, The feed provider AND the sales rep by name".
You need to clearly explain in your complaint the difference between “presentation” and “content”. It should also be made clear that you are not getting paid due the feed provider's failure to provide content as promised by their sales rep. By doing this you will force all 3 of the others to settle their differences so you get paid.

I'd say you have a couple of issues to think about.

1. With regard to Imax, (it) is really going to depend on whether or not Imax understood clearly that your company would only be passing along the feed to the website. That is to say, you would provide the presentation (style) and not the feed (content). Imax may only have understood the term “website” as a whole.

2. The feed provider did not perform as promised and Imax has their own contract with the feed provider. This should be a clear flag to a judge that there is a difference between what services you performed and what they performed.

Hire a good lawyer and make sure you get the complaint correctly worded.

In future, never start a project until you have made the clients give you a very clear description of their goals. Work closely with just one contact in the company who understands the project goals. Too many cooks do spoil the broth!

When you present a quotation, do you have a clearly written contract that states exactly what work you are going to do? Does it list all the functions you will provide? Does it state what you are and are not responsible for?

In this day of increasingly more complex websites with so many other technologies being included, you cannot afford to shut your eyes, cross fingers and hope it will work out right. It won't. Only you can do that.

Make "Communicate, Communicate, Communicate" your mantra and you will make your life a lot easier.

[RegDCP]

I can really sympathize >
I took on a contract to develop a travel portal with the understanding the client would be supplying the (live) database connected to an airline's offers and was to integrate it with a large site featuring many hotel, tour, and vehicle listings.

When he found out the cost of their setup, (due to his connections he assumed it would be free), he immediately stated that I had to provide the system instead of tying the site into the airline's DB.

Ya right! There are so many variables. This is a huge undertaking.
I proposed and built a php/mysql variation to use his data and found that he could not populate the database. He did not have the details as not much data was kept on the in-house software, the agents in the office preferred to use "scraps of paper" or journals.

The in-house software had a web based module. They took a look at his db and told him to “come back in a year”.

During the course of the project I found out that he had a complete DB shell built in Access on another server but had not been able to populate that either.

Both the other designer and I had been shafted for the last payment.

He has since had yet another designer do the site and the DB is still mostly unpopulated.
I bet this guy got the shaft too.

Reg

[Orion]

I think that we've all been 'blessed' or 'cursed' with a similar experience to some degree.

I taught webdesign and development for two and half years and actually took an entire class trying to help these 'green' designers understand how to listen, and usually most importantly ... how to ask the right questions.

Asking the right questions I've found has saved me many (never all) of the headaches I endured in my first couple years freelancing.

Now when dealing with big or small I try to make sure everything is understood fully at the beginning, that contingencies are laid out for changes in ideas or anything on either side. I also try to get the client to give me everything up front before I begin... Ever had a client continue to feed you changes to the site and it seems to go on forever? lol...

Hope all works out on that job you're currently with try to update us, especially if you find a good solution that works well for all parties.

[davebarnes]

You wrote: "viscious"

But, viscious is not an English word.
I suppose you meant "vicious":

• 1. addicted to or characterized by vice; grossly immoral; depraved; profligate: a vicious life.
  2. given or readily disposed to evil: a vicious criminal.
  3. reprehensible; blameworthy; wrong: a vicious deception.
  4. spiteful; malicious: vicious gossip; a vicious attack.
  5. unpleasantly severe: a vicious headache.
  6. characterized or marred by faults or defects; faulty; unsound: vicious reasoning.
  7. savage; ferocious: They all feared his vicious temper.
  8. (of an animal) having bad habits or a cruel or fierce disposition: a vicious bull.
  9. Archaic. morbid, foul, or noxious.

Or perhaps, you meant "viscous".

1. of a glutinous nature or consistency; sticky; thick; adhesive.
2. having the property of viscosity.

[bloxar]

You wrote: "viscious"

But, viscious is not an English word.
I suppose you meant "vicious":

I think that everyone understood the sense of his sentence even though “vicious” had a typing error. Don’t you think?

By the way vicious is not an English word is a Latin word like the 70% of English words “vitiosus: faulty, defective, corrupt," and from vitium "fault" also to describe recurrent bad behavior or addition to not accepted moral standard in roman society.

vitium (vice): moral fault, wickedness,”

Another interesting words London (city) Londinium Latin word, used to name the first Briton-Romano city in the Magna (L.magnus, great) Britannia (a Province or the Roman Empire today called Great Britain from 45 BC to 400 AC)

Oval (a place in London) L ovalis "egg-shaped" L. ovum "egg,"

[TrafficProducer]

Spell everything out clearly

What is needed is a Well writen Contract, defining what is wanted, expected and what they can expect to get. Times, costs, included.

You are not alone, (this does not help you much), but plenty of UK Government Computer services have had major problems due to the lack of understanding and expirations of the service they say they want... And after doing what they want they change the way they want it doing and expect to have this done for nothing.

[webreporter]

The story of our life. My wife and I work from home, are a small company and are routinely victim to unscrupulous sales people working for competitors. They have to hire those types because the owners of the companies know instinctively they have an inferior product.

We have been in business for over five years now, and earn more than ever, providing better than ever results to our clients.


In the end, the ones actually providing a good service will win, because the truth eventually comes out. I know it doesn't help the current situation, but something better is always just around the corner.

[CAD]

This is a follow up to the original posting.

I have spoken to our client since I originally posted this. He understands what our responsibility is to him. He has now asked us to quote doing the work to make the feeds perform as necessary. He has also asked us to quote building the feeds from scratch.

In response to all who replied above;

1. I did mean vicious. Sorry for the typo.
2. We did have a solid contract that spelled everything out. That is why he is asking us to requote for him.