Draft — awaiting owner approval · noindex until released
What a scope document really protects
Chimbuk studio3 min read
A scope document is often sold as anti-scope-creep armour. It's that — but its real job is different: it's the first artefact of trust between a studio and a client. Everything vague in month one becomes expensive in month three.
The three columns that matter
- In scope — screens, flows, integrations, named by outcome.
- Out of scope — written with the same care as what's in.
- Change price — how much an addition costs per hour/day, decided while nobody is angry.
We ask clients to sign all three. The third column is the one that keeps projects civilised: when scope changes (it will), the number already exists and nobody is negotiating in the middle of a deadline.
Milestones are communication, not invoicing
A milestone where you can tap the app on your own phone says more than ten status emails. We plan milestones as demo events first, invoices second — that ordering fixes most agency-client drift.
Every Chimbuk project starts with one signed page: three columns, one timeline, one number per change.
Begin the ascent
We build the things we write about.
If the field notes read useful, the work should too — tell us about your project.