I saw a tiny bit of discussion over whether it is acceptable or not to charge a client for research time. (Google, etc).
That got me to wondering how many of us fall on which side of the fence.
By research time, I am not meaning time spent googling things like this:
“How do I use destroyimmediate with all gameobjects that are the child of a given transform”
I mean things like researching the differences (performance and features) between using A* Pathfinding Project and Apex Path. Looking for different ways to utilize LINQ to increase performance of a script. That sort of thing.
To me, there’s no doubt that I should charge for all the time I spend on a project, no matter what it is.
However, there is the ethical issue of whether I should have taken the job in the first place if I have to look up basic things like the differences between types of pathfinding.
If the client knows that I know nothing about pathfinding and is willing to pay my rates while I learn, I’m fine with it. I would not be fine with charging them for that time while they thought I was already an expert.
Agreed with @wccrawford1 . I’ve never been dishonest about my capabilities when taking on freelance work, and when I’m asked to do something I don’t know how to do, I make that clear.
Then again, I’ve only ever done contract work on a fixed price basis, so when I know I’ll be doing something I don’t know how to do, I include learning that in with my estimate, so it’s not like the client is blind-sided by the fact that I’d charge for it, either.
Always. There is almost no chance I know the exact solution to a clients problem. There is a very high chance I can find the solution on google in a few minutes.
Research also covers failed solutions. Often there is a need to try several solutions out to find one that fits.
If a job requires up front learning before I can get started, then I will state that. And if they accept, I will charge for it.
Perhaps it’s just the industry I come from that leaves me with this attitude? It’s not unusual to get paid to spend a week or two on a course, if the skills gained are valuable in your day job.
I think larger companies tend to be better about this. The company I work for now was fine with me spending my first week getting up to speed with Angular.js, since it’s central to their technology and I had made it clear in my interview that I was only faintly familiar with it. At previous jobs with smaller agencies, however, I’d had to fight to get training time included on projects (for example, learning Python/Django to be able to work with a new client’s site employing them), and I know at least one of my former employers would have insisted I learn those things on my own time.
Sure. When I was an Independent Consultant (and even now when preparing quotes for my day job) I start out with a R&D phase. Sometimes it is just called creating a sitemap or even just Requirements Gathering. But the bottom line is in order for me to give someone exactly what they want (or better) I must spend time gathering information. Every environment is different. Possibly very close to others but rarely identical.
In fact, I often split projects into two phases with the first simply being to do a scope of work. And I generally do the very same thing when hiring out programming work. Often projects begin with I’ll pay you to spend some time looking into this… and let me know what you find.
Based on my experience doing this stuff for decades it is just the only reasonable way to work. Now if I hired somone who were “experts” in so-and-so (basically a canned service) then I would expect minimal R&D on their part would be required
Imo the thing with researching is that you don’t always know how long it takes. Hence researching is a risk for you and your client, if there’s a deadline involved.
If there’s little researching involved, I say you can take the risk… for the sake of delivering something better. And there’s always some research involved in everything you do, to certain degree.
But ultimately what matters is that you finish a task in a reasonable amount of time.
It’s not the sort of thing you should bill for unless you are willing to show all the research you did and why it is relevant to the client’s project. If you can’t do that then you can’t bill for that. Some mysterious, I did IR&D for 20 of 40 work hours last week too often translates to ‘Oh I distractedly and aimlessly surfed the web most of my work hours last week’.