Clients from hell or what are the client’s responsibilities?

Despite clients learning a lot in the last few years about digital projects, many of the same gripes crop up from developers. Projects are a partnership. They cannot be successful without both sides pulling their weight. This means responsibilities on both sides throughout the project. Now if you work with a Prince2 Project Manager and your client also has one, then they will work to a framework that both understand. Without this mutual understanding, you have to create one prior to starting the project.

We groan at the quotes on Clients from Hell but we all recognise them! Perhaps we can use them in a positive to help us educate clients. Show your new clients some of the top gripes as quotes and explain why the attitudes are counter-productive in digital design. Agree that they will not make you groan in the same way by working together to produce the project.

Take a look at the gripes in the links below and smile, but make them work for you. The companies that work successfully with their clients get repeat business and respect. How do you avoid having similar gripes?

Enjoy

• Clients from Hell (this one changes almost daily)
• Five client statements that frustrate freelancers – Patricio Robles 15th January

What is a project?

Maybe it is a good opportunity at the beginning of a year for you to reassess what project categories your company is involved with. We analysed the following in the first chapter of our book: client based projects, bread and butter projects, investment projects, maintenance projects, quick fix projects, R&D projects, good will projects, and pitches/tenders to win projects.

We suggested there that you identified and categorised the types of project you dealt with over the last year to see how and where your time and efforts have been deployed. Try it again. What projects have been most profitable? What projects have generated more business? Which projects have increased your company status? And so on ... Monetary return may not always be as straightforward in terms of the progress of a company. Looking back at projects can help you devise strategies for the future in terms of which projects may have to most impact – even in these uncertain times.

Perhaps we need to go back to some basics like ‘what is a project?’ Here are some views.

For those looking for a formal definition of a project the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) defines a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. The temporary nature of projects indicates a definite beginning and end. The end is reached when the project’s objectives have been achieved or when the project is terminated because its objectives will not or cannot be met, or when the need for the project no longer exists.
What is a Project? Module by: Merrie Barron, Andrew R. Barron.

A project in business and science is a collaborative enterprise, frequently involving research or design, that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.
Wikipedia: Project

But cnx differentiate between a project that is new and unique and an operation in business that is a repetitive process. Where does this leave us with web site revisions (maintenance?) and micro sites (small client projects?) Are they new projects or not projects at all, just part of a process; and if that is so, should project management tenets be applied in their production?

We have argued previously that they should be considered separate projects and costed out with time, resources and expenditure. We still maintain that, in fact. They can be grey areas but they do have new or different objectives and therefore represent a unique product or service even if they are refinements of a previous attempt.

Well, agree or disagree?

Winning Web Design Proposals

Clients are becoming choosy in the recession about who they want to develop and maintain their digital media offerings. Maybe it’s time to review your company’s proposals because it is at the initial stages that you can win new business with new clients who won’t make your life hell. How’s that, you may well ask? You need to cover all the bases in the questions you ask upfront to ensure that the new business doesn’t hide any nasty dark corners that you haven’t costed in the quote. Equally, the clients need to have complete understanding of the processes you’ll employ and then you ought to have a relatively easy ride.

It’s the misunderstandings that cause the problems. So, if you clearly explain upfront how you will assess the needs, how you will develop, what you will develop, how you will communicate the process to the client, and what their role is, you will start on safer ground.

SpeckyBoy Design Magazine has put together a really good set of resources to help you with web site proposals. It came out on 18th Jan 2010 and has already had lots of positive comments posted. Worth a long hard look.

See: speckyboy.com

iMedia Project Management and time, cost and quality issues

Sorry about not posting something last week – we were without power for 2 days! Anyway Happy New Year etc.

The fundamentals of time, cost and quality project management in developing interactive media continue to feature in any interactive add-ons such as developing mobile apps. It seems that the mantra of the time, cost quality triangle applies to all projects, of course. But, people get fazed by thinking ‘this is an incidental add-on to our main project’ when clients want mobile apps, a viral campaign, micro-sites or other spin-off projects from their main web site. These extras need to be considered as separate projects and scoped and costed accordingly remembering that if anything affects either of the elements of time, cost or quality then there is an impact on the other two. (And you have educated your clients to know this, haven’t you!)

Yes, iPhone Apps are different because they are bespoke, subject to Apple inspection and have a leaning to the software/database skill set rather than web design. But Tim Ocock, VP at Symsource has strong advice on developing iPhone apps that reflect time, cost and quality issues at: technologyweekly.mad.co.uk

His costs were a bit startling until he explained the overheads of these micro projects. However, the article seemed to have a ring of truth about it. What do you think?

Usability for web sites - where?

This is the last posting for this year and we'll be having a 2 week break then leaving Yahoo and moving exclusively onto this blog site in 2010.

Don't forget to set up your RSS feed so that you can get the postings automatically just like the Yahoo Group. We're moving because it allows us more flexibility for archiving the posts under relevant headings which makes for a better resource for searching for information when you want it.

So, usability guidelines. How have these changed ? Yes, there are more resources now and they are more extensive. As the web has grown, and the number and range of sites expanded, the intelligence on what helps people view information - and make sales - has grown too. You can drill down under about 20 sub-headings about various usability aspects at: www.usability.gov

This is a US government site that offers advice to web designers about how to design sites. But they do have a caveat:

Although considerable effort has been made to base the guidelines on research from a variety of fields, including cognitive psychology, computer science, human factors, technical communication, and usability; other disciplines may have valuable research that is not reflected in these guidelines.

That's a nice heads-up and shows the tenor of their guidelines.

Some people love him and some hate him, but whatever your view, Jakob Nielsen is a leading light in Usability. See his site for the latest at www.useit.com.

Finally, for a more recent and UK centric view, and one with online Christmas shopping at its centre, have a look at the article from Imprezz. A staggering 42% of people abandon their online shopping because of a perceived or actual slowing of the site.

www.hosting-news.net/tag/website-usability

Merry Christmas and a fantastic 2010 from us.

Elaine and Andy

RACI/RAM charts - do you need them?

You'll be forgiven for not knowing about these charts as we don't cover them on the general training course but we do cover them in our book. They can give a part answer to some of the problems that beset project teams particularly if people always seem to be countermanding decisions. RACI stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. It is a matrix chart that defines people's responsibilities across project deliverables. RAM stands for Responsibility Assignment Matrix and some people prefer to use this term. So far, so good.

Do you recognise any of these problems?

• 'My boss always overrules my decisions whenever she wants'
• 'The approval process for even the simplest item takes so long today'
• 'It seems everyone is putting together a spreadsheet on the same data'
• 'Things are always slipping through the cracks'
• 'I have the responsibility, but not the authority to get the job done'

Royston Morgan: www.projectsmart.co.uk

If any of these fit your workload, perhaps you might consider doing a matrix chart. You need to list the roles of your extended team across the top and then put deliverables/work tasks down the side. In the spaces agree with your team who is Responsible, Accountable, to be Consulted, and to be Informed. You write R,A,C or I in the space, or in fact leave the space blank if the person doesn't have to figure in the task. This gives you a blueprint of who should call the tune as the people Accountable should have the final decision. And there should be only one person Accountable in the chart for a task. The person Responsible for the task actually carries out the work or harnesses a team effort to achieve the task to the satisfaction of the Accountable person. When the same person is Responsible and Accountable – as might happen in our form of iMedia projects – then you can decide whether to put both initials in the box or allow A to imply both because there is no one else signified as Responsible.

This type of chart will clarify whose role is responsible for which task, and who is accountable for the final decision. This helps codify authority by implication. Authority to make decisions or allocate budgets can play a big part in potential conflict in projects – don't we just know. Our book, Managing Interactive Media page 84, gives a case study of a RACI chart for an e-commerce project, in case you have a copy.

Archiving reaches maturity

Remember when the word 'archive' for projects used to be a dirty word. Your managers wouldn't grant the time to you to archive as you got pushed into new urgent projects and your old ones hung around like the proverbial bad smell. Well, all's changing as digital online information becomes the norm. Given that, certain expectations about the stability of information and long-term access to it surface.

Digital archiving is now big business. If we look at massive infrastructure projects for archiving then our web projects look insignificant. But with success and focus come standards, so beware. We will be expected to conform to some digital archive standards sooner rather than later. Keep an eye out.

The government have recognised its responsibility for broken links in its online information in its Web Continuity Project. This recognises which version of a web page is being looked for and accesses that version rather than give the dreaded 'broken link' message.

Also, with online referencing becoming common – we use it all the time in these postings – there are concerns about changes to the referenced page, loss of contextualised meaning, misrepresentation and so on, over time. The 'ostephens' entry on the TELSTAR blog entitled, The When of the Web, gives a nice breakdown of some of these issues and some software solutions.

Finally, for a taste of some of the larger projects that are around at the moment and what's going on, take a quick look at the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) page. They have loads of money relating to higher education research and provision in the UK with some funding opportunities too.