What do you do about “Zombie” projects, that is, projects that stop for a long period of time and then come back to life?
Do you charge a restart fee? If so, at what time period?
Do you revise your fee and start the project as if it was new?
Thanks.
Our experience with such projects is that if they’re put on hold for more than a couple of years, we revise our fee. In that time period building codes change, products come and go, etc., so it’s effectively a new project.
We called them “Night of the Living Dead” projects.
We were once contacted by a client we had never heard of wanting to restart a project. After a bit of digging we learned that a previous firm had started the project which was then paused as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. That firm, let’s call firm A, was then bought by firm B. Some years later, firm B. still on a growth binge, bought Firm C, meaning us.
Time passes, allowing firms to marinate, allowing for staff turnover, etc., until no one is still around from the original project. Amazingly, after finding the ancient files and a couple site visits to acquaint ourselves, the project went very well.
Discontinuity creates tasks. That effort should be compensated.