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An important but often overlooked aspect of any database is the ongoing tweaking and adjustments (aka, development). Many people think that if they ask for a database system to be designed, it will deliver everything they ask for and more! How wrong they are! But, we have no problem in being up-front about that and tell everyone involved, that when we've signed off (remember, signing off means that the person in your company that is in charge of the project is happy with the result), that will not be a complete goodbye! We'll be back! Yes, there will be some things that will need to be adjusted since that is the nature of humans. As an example, when they were thinking of a way to move from place to place quicker than by horse and cart, someone invented the car! Once the car was invented, people then decided that these should be used to race against each other! Then, some bright spark decided that they should be a luxurious and expensive item and have every conceivable extra known to man! In the future, someone will want something else. As time and circumstance change, so do our needs and desires, and once someone has given us an inch, we want to be a ruler. It'll happen!
So, who pays for this? When we commence your project we will try to incorporate as much as you ask for and discuss this with you and then we will form a contract based upon that. Some contracts are actually based upon a staged progression and are expected to change from stage to stage as and when the need requires. From the contract, it can be determined what was asked for and whether the fine tuning or add-ons or design changes are due to our lack of understanding or it has now become apparent to the user that this feature and that feature will be useful! Believe me, every time, it is the user who has become a ruler!! But, since we are fair and up-front all the way through, the customer is always satisfied that these are changes from the original specification. Therefore, we ask that you keep this in mind when embarking on such a project, there are inevitably changes made down the track that will incur additional costs. Let me give you a guideline for a growing company: if the agreed project price is $1500, the cost over the next three to five years will also be $1500-ish. This takes into consideration your internal company policy changes. As your needs and requirements change, so also the systems in place need to be changed.
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