Feras Alhlou walks through how scope confusion happens: Matt mentions work casually to Nancy, but the team never formally confirmed what they'd actually deliver. Use your kickoff meeting to lock down deliverables, scope, timelines, and what's in the proposal.
It is not uncommon for many details to fall through the cracks during contracting. Say, while the engagement is being processed with the client's finance or legal team, your main point of contact, Matt, sends you a quick message. Hey, Nancy, one of the stakeholders, wants to confirm if she can add X to the deliverables. You respond, we can do it, but that would be a significant amount of work. It would require additional scoping, And a new timeline, a new proposal. Matt understands, but that conversation stays between you and Matt. It never makes it to the not included section of the contract and it never reaches Nancy. Now, after you start working with the stakeholders and you speak with Nancy, you and Nancy are operating with different expectations. So use the kickoff meeting to reset expectations and to recap the key elements of what you're delivering.
