Clearly, what we all want is a happy outcome for all involved.
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Years ago, someone asked me to build them an engine. They had seen me driving on many occasions, mostly to and from car shows, I think, and decided that I really got a lot out of my machine. They interviewed me on the subject and found that I was unafraid of disaster, even though I was taking every bit of horsepower out of a vintage machine. I explained that I did all the assembly work myself and that the magic is in the details; if the parts are of good quality and of the proper dimensions, and if the engine is properly assembled, it should be capable of everything it was capable of when new - maybe a little more, given some improvements in certain parts. So, they asked me to build them one! I at first refused, but they persisted. Eventually I thought I'd get out of it by giving them a price that was just too high. I asked a large flat fee, in addition to whatever the machine work cost or whatever the parts cost. Much to my surprise, they said YES!
I did the engine for them, and it worked out fine. Then, someone else asked and I said OK as I liked the money. However, this time the client kept changing their minds on what they wanted in the engine and even though I kept telling them that an engine is a system and the parts have to work together - they have to match, they wouldn't listen and kept insisting on changes. Each time things changed, I needed to redo lots of steps that were previously resolved already - I'd had enough! I finished the engine and swore it'd be the last work I do for someone else.
Then, someone else came to me and begged... "Hmm," I thought, "maybe there's a way." So, that's when I started developing standard operating procedures - ground-rules if you will. That engine went well, leading to my eventually coming to where I am now. Since that time, many years ago, I've had all sorts of other problems with doing things for others. Sometimes I'm flexible, but sometimes I will not budge at all. I consider these the hard rules because they were learned the hard way or caused hard times when they weren't followed.
There's more coming here...
Engines:
Engines are systems. All the pieces have to work together. If I am building an engine for a flat-fee, once an engine's parameters are set, I will not permit a change unless we consider it a new engine - and the old fee is not refundable. That said, there may be times when I have not yet performed some particular steps in which I may permit a change. To illustrate the point, lets consider that you want to change out the generator for a more correct one. If I'm still working on the crankcase "bottom end" then a generator change will be OK with me. But once I've mounted the generator, it won't be OK, though you could, perhaps, pay me "time and materials" to change the generator out for you.
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