Derek’s individual position statement, written privately with Mediator.ai. See the full example for context.
What’s happening
We hired Nina in late February to redesign our marketing site. Fixed fee, $12,000. Agreed scope was 8 pages, 6 weeks, 2 rounds of revisions. We’re now at t-minus-two-weeks from launch, and she’s flagging that the scope has grown and she wants another $8,000.
She’s right that it’s grown. I’ll say that up front. What I’m wrestling with is what’s my responsibility and what isn’t, and what I can actually get my CFO to approve in the next two weeks.
What I know I’ve done
- Approved a lot of “small” requests that I knew, honestly, were not small when I was sending them.
- Told our VP Product he could add the “integrated demo” widget without checking whether that was in the original scope.
- Asked Nina for a sixth round of homepage revisions last Wednesday because our CEO saw the staging site and wanted “more energy.” That wasn’t her fault.
- Shipped her a Slack message last Tuesday saying “let’s figure out the billing later, let’s just ship,” which was not a serious response to a serious question. I owe her a better one.
What I’m dealing with
- My CFO is not going to approve $8,000 without a change order. Not because he doesn’t like Nina, but because we run on POs, and scope changes require paperwork, and my CFO is going to want a line-item breakdown of what cost what. I can’t just add $8,000 to an invoice.
- My marketing team’s quarterly plan lives or dies on this launch. If we miss May 1, we miss the trade show window, we miss the campaign, we miss Q2. That’s real, but I don’t want to use it as leverage on someone I hired and respect.
- I can’t add $8,000 to this project without moving budget from something else. I have the flexibility, but it requires a conversation I’d rather do cleanly than improvised.
What I want
- Launch on May 1. Non-negotiable for me. Missing it is a much bigger hit to my team than $8,000.
- A scope change I can actually issue. If Nina can give me a single-page change order with a breakdown (original scope, added scope, agreed additional fee, timeline impact, payment terms), I can get it approved this week. Without that document, I can’t move.
- A sensible middle on the number. Nina’s ask of $8,000 is probably fair; I’m prepared to go to $6,000 with my CFO in the change order. If she’ll accept that, we’re done. If she pushes to $8,000 I’ll go back and try, but it’s going to make the conversation harder.
- A phase-two plan for the case-study section. We don’t have to build it all in May 1. If we can launch without the full case-study flow and add it as phase two, I’ll happily commit budget for that separately, and Nina gets the work.
- Payment on launch, not 60 days. I can do that. It’s a small thing to make her whole.
What I’m willing to do
- Pay the additional fee in full at launch, not on standard terms.
- Freeze scope effective immediately. Nothing new goes into the May 1 launch.
- Stand behind the change order with my CFO personally. This isn’t going to come back to Nina.
- Commit, in writing, to phase-two work at a specific dollar range once we know the case-study requirements, to be contracted separately.
- Write the Slack apology. I was flippant in a moment where she needed a serious partner.
What I’m not willing to do
- Sign a blank “we’ll settle it later” IOU. My CFO would never approve that post-launch, and I’d be setting Nina up to chase unpaid invoices.
- Pay her current BATNA number ($9,300 in overage at $150/hr). That’s enterprise billing rates applied to a small-business project; we priced the original contract with full knowledge of that. If I pay that, my CFO kills the phase-two budget and Nina loses the repeat engagement.
- Miss May 1.
What I’m afraid of
- That Nina is at the end of her patience with me, for reasons I understand, and that any negotiation now is going to feel like I’m trying to squeeze her after underestimating the work myself.
- That I’ll push too hard on the number, she’ll walk, and I’ll have to launch with a half-finished site and a contractor I don’t know.
- That if I don’t address this today, it’ll fester past launch and I’ll lose a good designer permanently.
What a good outcome looks like
A signed scope-change addendum by Friday. A clear list of what’s in the May 1 launch and what’s deferred. Nina paid on launch, not 60 days. A verbal commitment to phase-two work at a range I can stand behind. And, because this matters to me, an end to the last two weeks’ dynamic where she’s been working through my scope creep without getting heard.
BATNA
If we can’t agree: I launch on May 1 with whatever state the site is in (probably good enough), pay Nina the original $12,000 plus a $2,000 goodwill adjustment, and sever the relationship. This is a bad outcome for everyone and I’d like to avoid it.