When the client wants x product by a certain date, do you split it up into sprints and have the client pay for each iteration piecemeal as milestones?
Shouldn't you be finding a way to give them “x product by a certain date”? Managing how that happens is your job as the freelancer. If you decide to employ and Agile strategy to plan out your own work that's only fine if the client gets “x product by a certain date”.
I will show you what that conversation might feel like from your client's perspective if you're bothering them with agile details when they thought they had paid you to worry about the details of how it gets done.
Scene opens to a pizza restaurant, a hungry customer comes in to order a pizza and speaks to the worker behind the counter:
Customer: Hi, I'd like to order a large pepperoni pizza please. I am so hungry I couldn't even make it home to eat!
Worker: Well you're in the right place! Here at Petey's Pizza we practice a kitchen methodology called 'FRAGILE' and it's guaranteed to help reduce kitchen mistakes and produce good food of consistent quality!
Customer: Well that sounds great, how long until it's ready?
Worker: Well see, we don't think about a pizza as one big recipe, we like to think about a pizza as a series of steps. This means that we can use your customer feedback to shape how this pizza turns out at any stage during the process…
Customer: Okay, I just want whatever a 'regular' pepperoni pizza is…you know? Just do it like you would normally do it, and let me know when it's ready OK?
Customer, satisfied that the pizza is now being prepared, sits down and begins reading.
Worker: Excuse me, I've prepared a list of the various ingredients we'll be using in the dough and I've written these here with the prices per ingredient right beside the amounts. Before I move ahead with this next phase, can you please sign off on these ingredients, amounts, and prices? Do these look okay to you? I want to make this as easy for you as possible but I can't really begin making the dough until I have that approval to go ahead into the next phase.
Customer is slightly annoyed at being interrupted, blindly approves all ingredients, amounts, and prices, and returns to reading and waiting. Minutes pass…
Worker: Excuse me, I'm just about to start topping the pizza, but before I continue I just want your feedback on the dough. Does this look right to you?
Customer: I don't know what looks right, you're the professional aren't you? Why are you asking me the customer? I only know what it should look like when it's ready to eat. How long until it's ready for me to eat?
Worker: Oh don't worry, these steps are more of a formality than anything, you don't need to worry about this pizza's overall completion timeline. Look, I've already moved from the 'making the dough' phase into the 'topping' phase, we'll be in the next phase before you know it!
Customer: Okay, just please let me know when it's done.
Some time passes, pizzas enter the oven, and pizzas leave the oven, but none of them are the large pepperoni the customer is waiting for.
Worker: I'm so sorry, this pizza is taking more cheese than I originally anticipated, we need to revisit the ingredient list again and make some changes to the amounts. Let me draw up a new list of ingredients, amounts, and prices for you so we can still get the pizza to you on time…
Customer annoyed at being interrupted from their reading again, answers.
Customer: Look, I'm so hungry right now—just add whatever cheese you need to make a normal pizza!
Worker: Don't worry, this FRAGILE methodology is proven to produce the highest quality results on-time, nearly every time™. It's rarely failed, and when it does it's always the kitchen's fault, not the methodology. Just be patient and everything will be OK.
More time passes, and the pizza has still not gone into the oven
Customer: How's that pizza coming along?
Worker notices problems with the dough from the first few pizza prototypes they baked and realizes they simply need to take the project back to the 'make the dough' phase. Customer dies of hunger waiting for pizza.
La fin