What do you do when a client asks for something outside the scope?

What happened at the kickoff?

The kickoff for my current review was held at the north depot with the operations director and both depot leads. Partway through, the director asked whether the review could also recommend a warehouse system. It is a fair question. The board has an interest in the answer and the review will produce a great deal of information that looks relevant.

Section 2 of the engagement letter says that warehouse management software selection is out of scope and that any request in that direction is a written change request. So I pointed to that section and offered a separate written scope if they want one.

That is the whole method. The rest of this article is why.

Why not just say yes?

Because a fixed fee is a promise about price, and the price was built from the scope. Software selection is a different piece of work with different methods, different interviews and different risks. Folding it into the review would either starve the review of the days it was priced for or turn a fixed fee into unpaid work. Neither is fair to the client, who signed for a specific set of deliverables, or to me.

There is a second reason. A review that is also a software selection stops being a review. The constraint list starts to bend toward whatever a system would fix. The map is more honest when nobody in the room is shopping.

Why not just say no?

Because the request is reasonable and the client is entitled to an answer. A flat no treats a sensible question as a breach. The letter does not say the work cannot be done; it says the work is a written change request. That is an invitation to scope it properly, not a refusal.

How do you say it in the room?

How do you acknowledge the request?

Say back what was asked, in their words, so they know it was heard. "You would like the review to recommend a warehouse system."

How do you point to the letter without reading it at them?

Name the section and what it says. Do not produce the document and read aloud. The point is that both sides already agreed this, not that one side has the paperwork.

How do you offer the separate scope?

"If you want a software recommendation, I can write a separate scope with its own fee." Then leave it with them. The offer is genuine and the decision is theirs.

How do you return to the review?

Move on to the next item on the kickoff agenda. At Halvard that was data access: two months of receiving logs and the shift rosters by the end of the first week.

What is the status of the Halvard request?

Open. I offered a separate written scope. The client has not taken it up and has not declined it, and the review proceeds exactly as signed. That is a normal state for a change request to sit in, and there is nothing to chase. If they come back to it, the scope will be written and priced on its own terms.

Where did I learn to handle this?

Partly from a short refresher I wrote for myself on client terms, and partly by rehearsing. I keep a practice scenario built from this exact situation: the director says the board now expects a software recommendation, and I practise acknowledging the ask, pointing to the letter and offering the separate scope. Rehearsing a conversation alone sounds odd until the conversation arrives and the words are already there.

What is the rule?

Work that falls outside the written scope is quoted as a change request before it starts, never absorbed. It is in my standard terms and in every letter I sign. The rule is not there to be difficult. It is there so that the client always knows what they are paying for and I always know what I have promised.

Q&A

The questions people ask most about scope conversations are answered below.

Last updated 1 October 2026.