The project has used 100 of its 200 hours. The deadline is a month away. At the weekly review, someone says it’s about halfway done, and the conversation moves on to a job that looks more urgent.
Discovery is finished. The first concept has been presented. The client has yet to approve it, and most of the production work is still ahead. Everyone in the meeting knows this. Nobody has added up what it means for the hours left.
Take a hypothetical studio with a $24,000 fixed fee for that job. It allowed 200 hours at an average labour cost of $80 an hour, giving it a $16,000 labour budget. There are no outside purchases in this example, and the initial forecast assumes the staffing mix stays the same. With 100 hours already spent, another 100 remain in the budget to finish the work and get it accepted.
Ask for the estimate before mentioning the allowance
“We have 100 hours left. Can you finish in that?” is a difficult question to answer honestly when you’re responsible for delivery. You know what the answer ought to be. You can imagine a week when nobody interrupts you and the client accepts the next version. You say it should be possible.
Ask the person doing the work to walk through what remains, starting with the next unfinished deliverable. Include the work of getting it accepted. A design ready for presentation still needs presenting, and the hours after that meeting depend on what the client says.
In the studio’s case, the designer expects another pass on the concept before approval. Production can then begin, followed by the review of the finished work and its revisions. Preparing the final files and handing them over takes time too. Written down, the estimate looks like this:
Concept changes and approval 30 h
Production 60 h
Review and revisions 35 h
Final files and handover 15 h
─────
Still to do 140 h
Already spent 100 h
─────
Expected total 240 h
The designer should know the original budget. Ask for the hours required even when everyone knows the allowance is smaller. If the answer is 140 hours, asking for a version that adds up to 100 will produce a reassuring number for the meeting. The person doing the work will still have the same work to do afterwards.
Find out what the uncertain hours depend on
Those 30 hours against the concept deserve a conversation. The client hasn’t rejected it. Two people on their side disagree, and the designer has allowed for another pass without knowing which direction it will take.
If the current concept is approved, those hours could disappear. If the requested changes are extensive, they might become 40. The other work adds up to 110 hours, putting the remaining estimate between 110 and 150, assuming those changes leave the production work broadly as planned. A larger change of direction would need its own estimate.
This gives the account lead something specific to settle with the client: who can approve the direction, and what do they need to make that decision? Starting production while they disagree puts more work at risk of being redone.
Keep the condition beside the estimate. “110 hours if the current concept is approved” is useful at next week’s review. A range with no explanation invites someone to choose the lower figure and forget how it was reached.
What the fee can still cover
The original $16,000 labour budget left $8,000 of the fee to cover business overhead and profit. At the current estimate of 240 hours, labour will cost $19,200, leaving $4,800. A 20% increase in hours has used 40% of what the studio expected to retain before overhead.
Even immediate approval would put the expected total at 210 hours. Settling the concept would help considerably, but this project has already outgrown its original allowance. The studio needs to decide how to finish it knowing that.
An extra deliverable gives the account lead a reason to discuss an additional fee and delivery time before accepting it. An underestimate of agreed work is harder. The client bought a result at an agreed price, and the studio’s disappointing arithmetic won’t make a persuasive request for more money.
There may be a simpler way to deliver what was agreed. An existing template might replace a custom build. A client might accept fewer variations in exchange for an earlier delivery. Any change to what they receive needs their agreement. If the requirements hold and the work genuinely needs the extra hours, the forecast has to carry them.
Some overruns begin inside the studio. If a senior person repeatedly rebuilds work after an internal review, examine what was briefed and when the review happens. Moving that review forward may prevent another expensive round. Asking everyone to work faster leaves the cause untouched.
Cost the handoff
Suppose someone suggests handing 20 of the remaining production hours to a junior. At $80 an hour, the current estimate allows $1,600 for that work. A junior costing $45 an hour appears to save $700 if they can do it in the same time.
But the junior expects to need 28 hours, and briefing and checking the work will take another five hours from someone costing $80. The revised cost is $1,660. That handoff might still be sensible because it frees a person needed elsewhere. It increases this project’s expected cost by $60.
Ask for the same detail behind any proposed saving. Which work changes, who will do it, and what extra work does that create? Reduce the forecast when there is a defensible answer. “We’ll make up the time in production” needs an explanation before it belongs in the numbers.
Bring the estimate back next week
At the next review, take all the hours spent so far and add the revised estimate of what remains. Compare that total with the original 200-hour budget, and keep last week’s forecast alongside it so you can see what changed. If the client approved the concept, remove the work that approval made unnecessary. If production uncovered a problem, put the extra work in.
Be wary when hours keep getting recorded but the estimate to finish stays the same. Have new requirements appeared? Has completed work come back for revision? Or has someone simply carried last week’s estimate forward? Each deserves a different conversation.
The hours already spent need to be current too, including calls, internal reviews and the owner’s own time. Fini applies each person’s configured cost rate to their logged hours, including non-billable time. The people responsible for delivery supply the estimate of what remains.
Before the review ends, record the decision that could change the forecast and give someone responsibility for it. For this studio, that means the account lead getting a decision on the concept before production starts. Next week, the team can establish whether that happened and what it changed. “About halfway done” would have let them spend another week without finding out.