Fixed-Bid Rebuild With a Moving Scope

Issue a change order; do not absorb. Absorbing converts a scope problem into a margin, quality, and team-retention problem, and it teaches the client that late requests are free. The new COO's community, SSO, and French-Canadian version are new scope, not clarification of the signed scope, and the design has already exceeded the three-revision limit. Quantify the impact in days, dollars, and schedule before the conversation: community build, AMS integration, translation and locale QA, plus the design overrun.

Present three options rather than a single demand: (A) full added scope with a revised price and date; (B) a phase-one launch that covers the conference with community and SSO deferred; (C) added scope funded by descoping something the client values less. Escalate to the executive sponsor with a one-page impact statement. The finance director's stop-work position is a legitimate lever, but using it as a threat damages the relationship more than a transparent change order. Protect the relationship through options, documentation, and predictability, not through unpaid work.

Prepare a scope baseline, a decision log, and an impact summary before the meeting. Show what was signed, what has been delivered, what has changed, and what the change costs in money and time. Separate relationship language from commercial language: affirm the goal of a successful conference launch, then ask the client to prioritize among community, SSO, French-Canadian, and the original scope. Do not negotiate line items in the room without a written follow-up.

Set a design sign-off gate with a firm date and explain the schedule consequence of missing it. Define "one round" as consolidated feedback from a named approver, not sequential comments from multiple stakeholders. Record decisions in a revised statement of work and require written approval before work starts. The reasoning is that ambiguity is the real cost driver: the agency cannot price or schedule requests that are verbally requested and informally absorbed. A structured conversation also protects the client's sponsor from surprise.

Work backwards from the conference and test the date against the critical path, not against optimism. Identify the must-have launch scope: content migration, member directory, accessibility and QA, analytics, and redirects. Put community, SSO, and French-Canadian into a post-launch phase or a separate workstream, and state clearly which conference needs each item serves.

Offer a phased launch with a stable date and a reduced scope rather than compressing QA and accessibility. If the sponsor insists on the full scope by the conference, present the cost of acceleration: additional staff, parallel translation, and a higher defect risk, priced explicitly. Do not silently absorb schedule risk. The reasoning is that the launch date is a constraint, but scope, quality, and cost are also constraints; the professional move is to make the trade-off explicit and let the sponsor choose.