Discounts

10% for payment in full in advance

Units

Pricing is based on a unit system

1 unit	=	1 day on site,	2 partial days remote
2 units	=	2 days on site,	3 partial days remote
3 units	=	3 days on site,	4 or 5 partial days remote

Rates

Our standard rate is $10K/unit ($9K/unit with the payment-in-advance discount) for either short-term consulting or a minimum-sized class. This standard rate covers classes with 10 or fewer students. For larger classes, add $800/unit ($720/unit with payment-in-advance discount) for each additional student above the initial 10.

This rate includes all expenses, including travel for on-site classes and expenses associated with spreading the class over multiple days for remote classes.

For on-site work outside of North America, we bill for 3-days/units minimum, even if you need less time. 

Confirmation

We cannot confirm dates until we receive a purchase order or a deposit/payment. Receipt of either constitutes acceptance of our bid and terms. We will try to keep your desired dates open without confirmation, but there are no guarantees.

Ongoing consulting work:

Our preference is to bill by the job, not by the day. We negotiate a price for the job and a payment schedule before work begins.

However, if you would prefer to work on a per-day basis (we do not work hourly), we can bill against a retainer that represents roughly a month's work. We will invoice you to replenish the retainer when it dips below 50%. Since work will stop if the retainer is exhausted, please consider the length of your typical payment cycle when funding it. A retainer effectively constitutes payment in advance, so the 10% discount applies. Usually, we will arrange dates for work as needed. If you want to guarantee that we reserve a certain minimum number of days every month for your exclusive use, we will bill you for that many days, whether you use them or not.

Individual-payment option for classes

If you prefer not to issue a blanket P.O. for classes, we can arrange for students to pay individually via credit card or PayPal. All individual payments must be received at least one week in advance of the first day of class. We will issue individual receipts to each student so they can be reimbursed easily.

Terms for classes and fix-length jobs

Payment in full in advance for a 10% discount.

Otherwise, nonrefundable 50% deposit received by us at least two weeks in advance of the first day of the engagement, balance due net 14 from the last day of the engagement.

Payment must be made by Electronic Funds Transfer or equivalent in USD. We'll send banking information on request. We also accept credit-card or PayPal payment for a 3.5% fee.

Class cancellation

If you cancel, you must reimburse any travel expenses such as airfare we've purchased. You may reschedule without penalty, our schedule permitting, but there may be additional airfare costs in that case. If you choose not to reschedule, you agree to forfeit any advance payment. If no advance payment has been made, you agree to pay a 50% cancellation penalty. If we must cancel due to illness, we will reschedule at the first mutually acceptable date.

Travel & Expenses

Travel and expenses are included in our standard rate. We can invoice these as separate line items, but we will select our own flights, hotels, etc., and will bill a per-diem, not itemized.

Video recording

We are happy to site-license a recording of the lecture portion of classes for subsequent in-house use. Price varies with the projected number of viewers. Please contact us for a quote. Recording either on-site or remote classes is not permitted without prior agreement.

You may record remote consulting sessions at no charge, but distribution is restricted to participants in the original consulting sessions.

Remote workshops

Most of our classes can be presented remotely. We present using Zoom.com and also spatial.chat if there are hands-on breakout sessions. We will provide detailed directions to students shortly before the first day of class. For hands-on classes, we'll need a way to contact everybody (typically email addresses or access to a company Slack channel). Students should plan on spending an hour or so familiarizing themselves with the system before the first day of class. We will need to arrange additional details for any hands-on class that requires programming such as mob-programming or TDD classes.

We will also need to use a shared virtual whiteboard system. It would be best if you set up an account with mural.co or miro.com for that purpose so that you can have easy access to any documents we produce after the workshop completes. Please evaluate both systems. Lacking that, we can use our mural.co account and we can provide the final artifacts to you in .pdf form. If the class will be using our virtual whiteboarding system (mural.co), individual participant email addresses are required so that we can provide access.

Equipment for remote work

If the work has a remote component, you must provide high-quality video conferencing equipment for your end of the connection. In general, that means a high-resolution webcam and headset or high-quality microphone for each participant. We require video on. A typical webcam microphone or speakerphone is often unacceptable unless you have an acoustically treated room that reduces echo. Several people huddled around a single speakerphone in a standard conference room or office will not be adequate.

We will postpone or cancel any session where you connect with inaudible equipment.

Materials and equipment for hands-on on-site workshops

All classes:

• A suitable room with a large whiteboard. Additionally, workshops require plenty of wall (or window) space.
• A large projection-sized monitor with an HDMI input or an HDMI projector and screen. We cannot use your computer for our presentations, so a monitor/projector is essential.
• Workshops require moveable tables and chairs. A traditional computer "lab" won't work, and conference rooms are suitable only for lecture-only or very-small hands-on classes.

Workshops that involve event storming: (e.g., Incremental Architecture and the 3-day Microservices workshop) require the supplies listed at https://holub.com/event-storming . Please bear in mind that the post-it note colors are not arbitrary, so please do not substitute an off-the-shelf combination pack of arbitrary colors.

Workshops that involve DbC: We break up into groups for the design-by-coding exercise, and each group will need to be able to read the screens. One LCD projector per group will work, as will large monitors. If you can't provide these, contact us and we can arrange to bring projectors. Each group shares a single machine, so be sure that that machine is loaded with an IDE and/or whatever editors members of the group prefer. If you are not doing an event-storming component, we require the craft-paper roll, masking tape, and yellow sticky notes described at https://holub.com/event-storming. Other colors are not required.

Workshops that involve story mapping: (Agility and any workshop involving Agile planning) require the craft-paper roll, masking tape, and yellow sticky notes described at https://holub.com/event-storming. Other colors are not required.