Chapter 37. Managing Client Conflicts as a Freelancer
In this chapter, I'm going to discuss managing client conflicts. It's simply a matter of life and business that you will run into conflicts with clients. Some of the most common confrontations seem to be:
- Going over the time you originally estimated
- Going over the budget for the project
- Not delivering a feature that matched the client's expectations
- A bug occurring in an application
None of these are fun to work through, and most of them can be avoided if the proper care is taken at each stage of the project management process. However, I want to discuss what happens when conflicts occur and how to best manage them.
Strategies for managing client conflicts
First and foremost, do not let emotions take over. This is probably one of the hardest ones for me because I love what I do and when bad things happen in a project my first response is to get defensive, which is one of the worst responses to have. So, when I see an...
