Scoping a project in two-week blocks

We used to quote projects end to end: one number, one timeline, one delivery date somewhere over the horizon. It worked until it didn't, and when it didn't it failed in the same way every time.

The problem with the single number

A single up-front quote requires knowing the shape of the work before doing any of it. Since nobody knows that, everyone pads. The client pads their budget expectation downward, the studio pads its estimate upward, and the gap between those becomes a negotiation about numbers rather than a conversation about scope.

Worse, it pushes the first real deliverable months out. By the time anything concrete exists, both sides have been imagining different projects.

What we do now

Work is quoted per phase, in two-week blocks, with a defined output at the end of each. The first block is almost always cheap and almost always the most valuable: it turns an ambiguous brief into a specific one.

• Each block ends with something real — not a status update.
• The next block is quoted once the current one lands, when both sides know more.
• Either side can stop at a block boundary, and you keep everything produced.

What this costs

It is more administrative overhead, and it requires being honest at each boundary about what actually got done. That honesty is the point. A project that should stop is far cheaper to stop at week four than at week sixteen.