The Fixed-Price Migration Nobody Scoped
You are the project lead for a data migration at a mid-sized insurer. The contract was signed as fixed-price at $480,000 with a 14-week schedule and a go-live tied to a regulatory filing window. In week 3, the business owner reveals that two downstream reporting teams were never interviewed. Their requirements add roughly 40 data fields, a nightly reconciliation job, and a parallel-run period of four weeks. The vendor's statement of work lists 'reporting interfaces as defined in Appendix B,' and Appendix B is a one-page diagram with no field-level detail. The vendor argues the new work is out of scope and will cost an additional $95,000 and three weeks. Your sponsor wants to 'just absorb it' to protect the filing date and asks you to instruct the team to work overtime without a change request. Two of your analysts are already at 55-hour weeks.
1. How should you handle the scope dispute with the vendor, and what is your first concrete action?
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The dispute turns on whether Appendix B reasonably defined the reporting interfaces. A one-page diagram with no field-level detail is ambiguous, and ambiguity in a fixed-price contract is a shared risk that should be resolved through the change control process, not by unilateral absorption.
First action: convene a scope clarification session within 48 hours with the vendor, the business owner, and the two reporting teams. Produce a written, field-level definition of the 40 fields and the reconciliation job, and classify each item as (a) clearly in Appendix B's intent, (b) clearly new, or (c) ambiguous.
Then route the result through the change control board with a cost and schedule impact statement. Do not verbally commit to the $95,000 or to absorbing it. Document that the requirement gap originated in incomplete elicitation during planning, which is your side's process failure and may justify sharing some cost even under fixed-price terms. The goal is a defensible, written position, not winning the argument.
2. The sponsor directs you to instruct overtime and skip the change request. What do you do?
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Decline to skip the change request, and say so plainly with the reasoning attached. Skipping change control on a fixed-price contract creates three concrete problems: unrecoverable cost, no audit trail for the regulator, and a precedent that scope can expand without record.
On overtime: 55-hour weeks sustained across a 14-week schedule is a burnout and quality risk, and the migration touches regulatory reporting where errors are expensive. Present the sponsor with options rather than a refusal:
- Option A: formal change request, $95,000, three-week slip, renegotiate the filing date with the regulator.
- Option B: descope the reconciliation job to phase 2, keep the filing date, log the deferral.
- Option C: shared-cost negotiation with the vendor, partial change order.
Escalate through the governance channel if the sponsor insists. Document the direction and your objection in writing. Professional responsibility here means protecting the organization from an unrecorded commitment, not simply complying with the loudest voice.