Can? How much? How fast?

When doing freelance IT projects, some questions from prospective local customers would sometimes be like this:

"Hi, can you do a SQL/web/intranet/(fill in with appropriate IT word) program?"
"How much har?"
"When can finish?"

This is very common and I am always very cautious when dealing with such customers because:

1. They typically (>90% of the time) do not know what is the effort involved (most likely they learn of this requirement from an in-house IT guru, who might or might not have any experience in IT)
   
2. They also do not know what they really want (they are just relaying someone else's words)
3. They only look at the cheapest quote

Most of the time, I would quote them what I feel is reasonable (of course!) base on a lot of assumptions (the more assumptions and buffer, the more costly it is) as they can't provide me with a reasonable basis to work out a quotation. This is really a case of "you get what you pay for".

For customers whose only concern is cost, I would happily give them a miss as they are the "don't care, don't know, don't bother me unless it is delivered and working" type. These companies are the type that hobbles along on a barely working/functional and often broken IT infrastructure, going from vendor to vendor/supplier whenever the system is down, because they only look at the cost.

Vendor after vendor apply various patches, workaround and upgrades to the original system until it is barely recognizable, and maintainable. Most, if not all, of the time such companies do not have a documentation of the system and the database, resulting in tremendous efforts in tracing through the system and trying to figure out what it is supposed to be doing. And yes, most of the time this work is being performed on production systems too.

Despite the claims by the press, internet and local authorities, the majority of SME owners are rather IT illiterate and clueless (this is base on my limited experience). Most of the time, cost is the only concern. Some of them are happy with a halfway broken system because of the "I know it's broken but I have a staff doing it, fixing it will cost a lot of money lehhh..." way of life. They will devote a staff or two, or even three to perform some of the functions that the system should be performing alone if it was not broken.

Even worse are those who are semi IT-literate, certified as literate after attending a 3 day course in IT conducted by instructors who have barely have any experience in real life IT operations. They are adamant that their "IT Way" is correct and you should not attempt to advise them because they know better.

Let me provide an analogy. Suppose you need to buy shoes, you can either chose to buy a cheap one, or a slightly more expensive but durable one. So, would you rather buy a $30 pair of shoes that spoils every 3 months, or a $150 one that can last you at least a year or more? Some companies would avoid paying the $150 like the plague because the perceived cost is "high". That's sad, limited, and yet very real.

Therefore, in order to secure the job and to fix the problems properly, a lot of communication and persuasion is necessary. The customers must be convinced of the value of the solution, and invest his/her own time into it to help shape the final solution. IT is central to a lot of their operations and can be made to provide more assistance to their business, but yet is given very little priority and investment.

Having said that, there are a lot of moonlighters out there who over promise and under deliver, causing this vicious cycle to continue. I have personally seen some local e-commerce sites with extremely poor exception handling in their purchase and payment code. Yes, they have the usual certificates, logos and seals, but the certification process does not include the testing or validation of the source code itself.

Shop on local websites? Err... maybe not yet... let someone else be the guinea pig for these eBay wannabes :)

Maybe I will get a chance to help fix these borken sites once they get complained :P haha!