The scope changed eleven times. The price changed once.

Delivered margin rarely matches quoted margin, and the gap is usually built from small reasonable decisions made by the person least equipped to price them.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for The scope changed eleven times. The price changed once.

A quote goes out at 38% gross margin. The job closes at 24%. Nobody made a bad decision, nobody discounted, and the estimate was broadly sound. The difference is a sequence of small accommodations: a redesign after the client’s board saw the draft, an extra site visit, a report format changed twice, three weeks of a delivery lead answering questions that were never in the brief. Each one was defensible in isolation. Together they were the year’s margin. This is the most common form of price erosion in project and…

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