{"course":{"slug":"ai-careers","title":"Working in AI","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers","level":"beginner","track":"work"},"lesson":{"slug":"scope-and-the-proposal","title":"Writing the thing that prevents the argument","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/scope-and-the-proposal","position":72,"of":85,"minutes":9,"answer":"A proposal exists to make the disagreement happen in week zero, and its most valuable sections are what is excluded, what acceptance means, and how many revisions are included.","keyIdea":"A proposal exists to make the disagreement happen in week zero, and its most valuable sections are what is excluded, what acceptance means, and how many revisions are included."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Every bad freelance experience is a scope failure\n\nNot a technical failure. Somebody expected something that somebody else did not intend to deliver, nobody wrote it down, and by the time the difference is visible there is money and pride attached to both readings.\n\nA proposal is not a sales document. It is the artefact that makes the disagreement happen in week zero, cheaply, instead of in week eight, expensively.\n\n## The seven sections\n\nTwo pages, plain language, no design.\n\n**1. What I understand your problem to be.** In *their* words, from the conversation. Three or four sentences. This section alone catches a startling number of mismatches, because clients read it and say \"no, that is not really the issue\".\n\n**2. What I will do.** The approach, briefly.\n\n**3. What you will get.** The deliverables, named as objects. Not \"improved reporting\" but: \"a dbt project in your repository with twelve models and tests; three dashboards; a one-page handover document; a two-hour walkthrough.\"\n\n**4. What is not included.** The most valuable paragraph in the document. Name the things a reasonable person might assume: ongoing maintenance, training beyond the walkthrough, changes to source systems, mobile layouts, migrating historical data, support after handover.\n\n**5. What I need from you, and by when.** Access, a named decision-maker, review turnaround. Write the consequence: *\"Assumes read access to the warehouse by day two. Each week of delay moves delivery by a week.\"* This is not aggression; it is the only thing that prevents a delay caused by the client becoming a delay attributed to you.\n\n**6. Timeline and milestones**, with payment attached to each.\n\n**7. Price, validity and how changes are handled.** A quote should expire (thirty days is normal) so a client cannot accept in five months at last year's rate.\n\n> Figure: The seven sections, on two pages. Layers, top to bottom: 1. What I understand your problem to be (in their words; catches a startling number of mismatches); 2. What I will do (the approach, briefly); 3. What you will get (deliverables named as objects: twelve models, three dashboards, a walkthrough); 4. What is not included (maintenance, training, source-system changes, historical migration); 5. What I need from you, and by when (access by day two; each week of delay moves delivery a week); 6. Timeline and milestones (payment attached to each; acceptance defined; revisions numbered); 7. Price, validity, how changes are handled (a quote expires in thirty days). The document exists to make the disagreement happen in week zero, cheaply, instead of in week eight. Section four is the most valuable paragraph in it.\n\n## Milestones that protect both sides\n\nA shape that works for a six-week project:\n\n```\nPhase 1 — discovery and written assessment      30%  on start\nPhase 2 — build, delivered for review           40%  on delivery\nPhase 3 — revisions, handover, documentation    30%  on acceptance\n```\n\nTwo details do the work. **Acceptance must be defined** (\"acceptance means the three dashboards match the agreed metric definitions on the test period; two rounds of revisions are included\") otherwise \"done\" is whatever the client feels on the day. And **revisions are numbered**. Unlimited revisions is not generosity; it is an unbounded liability, and it makes you resentful of a client who is behaving reasonably.\n\n## The change request, and the tone\n\nScope creep almost never arrives as a demand. It arrives as \"while you are in there, could you also…\", and each request is small and reasonable. Three of them is a week.\n\nThe move is always the same, and it is a yes:\n\n> \"Yes, we can do that. It is outside the current scope, so I will send a short change note with the cost and the new date, probably about two days. Shall I?\"\n\nYou have agreed, priced it, and moved the date, in one sentence, without a confrontation. Clients respect this; what they resent is a freelancer who silently absorbs three changes and then delivers late.\n\nKeep a written log of every change, even the ones you waive. \"Included at no charge: two extra dashboards (worth ₹40,000)\" on the final invoice is the most effective goodwill you can generate, and it prevents the free work from becoming the new baseline.\n\n## The kill clause\n\nBoth sides should be able to end it. A termination clause saying either party may end the engagement with two weeks' notice, with completed milestones payable and work in progress billed at the day rate, protects the freelancer from a client who goes quiet and the client from a freelancer who is not working out.\n\nNobody enjoys writing this and everybody who has been through a bad engagement has one.\n\n## The limitation\n\nSome clients read a detailed scope as rigidity, particularly smaller ones used to informal arrangements. The answer is tone, not substance: keep the document short and human, lead with the understanding of their problem rather than with your exclusions, and say out loud that the purpose is so neither of you is surprised.\n\nIf a client is unwilling to define what \"done\" means, that is not a document problem. That is the client, and the information is worth having before you start rather than in week eight."},"check":{"question":"Three weeks into a fixed-price project, a client asks for \"one more small dashboard, while you're in there\". It is genuinely about two days of work. What is the best response?","options":[{"text":"Do it without charging, since two days is minor and goodwill will pay off in future work.","correct":false,"tempting":"Sets the precedent that additions are free, which converts each subsequent reasonable request into another unpaid week."},{"text":"Decline politely and point to the signed scope.","correct":false,"tempting":"Protects the scope at the cost of the relationship, when the client's request is reasonable and could simply be priced."},{"text":"Agree, and send a short change note stating the cost and the revised delivery date before starting it.","correct":true},{"text":"Do it and mention the extra effort in the final invoice as justification for a higher total.","correct":false,"tempting":"Bills for work the client never agreed to pay for, which is the version of this that ends in a dispute over the final payment."}]},"prev":{"slug":"where-clients-come-from","title":"A pipeline, after the first three clients","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/where-clients-come-from"},"next":{"slug":"getting-paid-on-time","title":"Invoices, procurement, and the chase","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/getting-paid-on-time"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'Writing the thing that prevents the argument', in Working in AI. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/ai-careers/scope-and-the-proposal (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"Writing the thing that prevents the argument","courseTitle":"Working in AI","module":{"index":8,"slug":"working-for-yourself","title":"Freelancing and contracting, as a business"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"A proposal exists to make the disagreement happen in week zero, and its most valuable sections are what is excluded, what acceptance means, and how many revisions are included.","hero":{"kind":"figure","figure":{"t":"figure","label":"Figure","figure":{"type":"stack","title":"The seven sections, on two pages","layers":[{"label":"1. What I understand your problem to be","detail":"in their words; catches a startling number of mismatches"},{"label":"2. What I will do","detail":"the approach, briefly"},{"label":"3. What you will get","detail":"deliverables named as objects: twelve models, three dashboards, a walkthrough"},{"label":"4. What is not included","detail":"maintenance, training, source-system changes, historical migration"},{"label":"5. What I need from you, and by when","detail":"access by day two; each week of delay moves delivery a week"},{"label":"6. Timeline and milestones","detail":"payment attached to each; acceptance defined; revisions numbered"},{"label":"7. Price, validity, how changes are handled","detail":"a quote expires in thirty days"}],"caption":"The document exists to make the disagreement happen in week zero, cheaply, instead of in week eight. Section four is the most valuable paragraph in it."},"alt":"Figure: The seven sections, on two pages. Layers, top to bottom: 1. What I understand your problem to be (in their words; catches a startling number of mismatches); 2. What I will do (the approach, briefly); 3. What you will get (deliverables named as objects: twelve models, three dashboards, a walkthrough); 4. What is not included (maintenance, training, source-system changes, historical migration); 5. What I need from you, and by when (access by day two; each week of delay moves delivery a week); 6. Timeline and milestones (payment attached to each; acceptance defined; revisions numbered); 7. Price, validity, how changes are handled (a quote expires in thirty days). The document exists to make the disagreement happen in week zero, cheaply, instead of in week eight. Section four is the most valuable paragraph in it."}},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"every-bad-freelance-experience-is-a-scope-failure","runs":[{"text":"Every bad freelance experience is a scope failure"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Not a technical failure. 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