May 27, 2008 at 10:27How to order a site
The blog has a lot of posts about how performers behave when creating web projects, a lot about malicious behavior of customers. Everyone does one thing, but there is no mutual understanding.
As a result, many projects break deadlines, require more investments, and as a result, their quality and economic effect from the launch are worse than expected. What to do?
That's right - it means getting what you wanted, at the right time and with sufficient quality of the product and services.
0. State your goal
What do you want to get?
What audience is your product for?
What do you want to achieve in a year or two?
What tasks will you solve on the network, which ones will be done only in the offline part of the business? How can these events change in the next year or two?
What changes in the proposed goods and services do you predict?
What web product management features will you retain, which ones will be transferred to employees, which ones will be assigned to contractors?
The result of the formulation of the goal should be the concept of the project, setting the task at the top level. It is stated in 5 minutes, on paper it takes exactly 1 sheet. Do not try to write a multi-volume TK; at the moment this is not necessary.
The main questions: who, when, what, and for what purpose will do with the application of the future web project.
1. Choose adequate performers
Adequate - that means those who take normal human pay for their work. Estimate how many person-months you need to produce the product you need, estimate the price of 1 month of work of a qualified specialist in your region and add taxes, rent, communication, advertising and reasonable profit.
Adequate - means having a clear portfolio and market-oriented web services. There should be at least one job in the portfolio that is similar in complexity to yours.
Adequate - means having a horizons in those business problems that you plan to solve and are able to express their opinion.
upd . There is a fairly simple way to evaluate the actual complexity of the site. The fact is that less than 3 people rarely deal with the site, so the complexity should be considered in man-days or man-months. How to find out: ask questions to the person with whom you are discussing the future of the project: who will work and how much time. The answer may sound, for example, like this:
Total 1.75 man-months.
2. Enter into a
contract . A contract should be read, if possible with a lawyer, to draw the attention of contractors to everything that seems incomprehensible, superfluous, incorrect, unwritten to you. Nobody will specifically throw you, but it is important that you and the contractor equally understand all the essential details. Feel free to ask for important points to be recorded.
Particularly important: terms, cost, copyright, warranty, technical support and reuse of what they do for you.
The market situation is such that the conclusion of a specific sensible agreement is useful to everyone. Cases of fraud are unknown to me, but conflicts rapidly developing right up to a break in relations, the death of a project and massacre because of a misunderstanding are very common.
The contract must necessarily indicate: what, when (from ... to ... or to ...), by whom and for what money will be made. In large contracts, each issue is covered by the application (amounts, TK, schedule, sequence of interaction, responsible persons).
If you work with a freelancer, then after all the correspondence, compose one letter describing the work, timing and payment, and send it to him. He must answer: yes, that's right. This will be the contract.
3. Get Ready to Promote
Many, many things you must do. These are:
- transfer of all materials available for you and necessary for the project in a digestible form. A pile of yellow paper or “there is a petya in the warehouse, he will tell you everything” - into the firebox. Respect the contractor.
- making decisions. The contractor is obliged to advise you, propose options, tell without hesitation about the pros, cons, features and consequences of actions (the better he does it - the higher his level), but you decide. Depending on the adopted model, you will either make the main decision “the contractor is responsible for everything, up to the percentage of profit” or you will consciously choose between joomla and drupal and the colors of all banners. It is important that you make a decision consciously, with the certainty that you don’t get a cat in a poke, and in any case be responsible for your decisions. Do not put your responsibility on the contractor.
4. Delegate authority
- to the contractor. Do not try to control every step. Do not demand a daily report and do not ask, “why does it leave here like this?” Do not try to check and verify the quality of each comma. The situation in web technologies is such that on the whole your task will be solved, but some specific instructions that seem simple and natural to you will turn out to be almost impossible. You have chosen professionals? it means that they do not harm and do not fill the price, but they say it as it is: it is impossible to do it or it’s better not to do it . Trust in the professionalism of your chosen people.
- to their employees. If your project is any big, you will not work alone. You may have a deputy, wife, secretary, photographer, merchandiser or full-time designer. Decide in advance what you and only you will decide, and what your colleagues will decide. You can close all decisions only to yourself, but then the quality will deteriorate, and the terms will increase. If you surrendered, try not to take them back. Do not terrorize the project with impulsive decisions.
5. Do not forget to accept work and pay.
Very often, a project freezes at the stage of “85% ready,” but it’s full of bugs and everything crawls from everywhere. Then the developers plow, the project manager is nervous, the customer is waiting with fear. If so - give people a week, they will do a lot.
If you occasionally see non-critical errors, errors, something annoys you, but in principle corresponds to the task, goals and common sense, show honesty and generosity, accept and pay for the work.
You are not working with these people for the last time, and the worst thing you can do is to pull the receipt to the last comma. Firstly, next time you will be billed with a margin in the category "nerd, + 100%", and secondly, often these "last bugs" have no meaning, but require effort comparable with the whole project. Make compromises.
0. Agree on proposals in the style of "I understand, I will do it tomorrow."
The option is “well before the session for sure” and offers, the price of which is more than 2 times lower than the average market price. The chances of getting a low-quality product sharply increase, three times late and with an error on the main page. Free cheese - and further on.
1. To give 100% prepayment
Even if there is an agreement and conscience, the contractor out of cowardice, laziness and greed can leave you alone with the unfinished project at the time of the crisis, offering to sue.
2. Start without prepayment.
People who are ready to start working without an advance, either do not value their work, or trust you infinitely.
3. Sign without reading
The consequences are obvious. The 90s have passed, you won’t be able to put the designer on the knives, but you will have to pay for the alteration of the accepted, and twice - with money and missed deadlines.
4. Considering that the site is a panacea for all ills and a direct path to a million dollars
Any web project is nothing more than a tool. A special, specific, but an instrument. He will not replace you with either a merchandiser, or a director, or logistics, for accounting. With proper goal setting and planning, he is able to save a lot of energy by taking on the routine and mechanical operations of these characters. And pay for it.
5. Release the situation out of control
Always know who is responsible for each question. When creating a site, you will interact (possibly through intermediaries) with many services and organizations. You do not have to know the admin of the hoster personally, but you need to know exactly who to ask. And let him know too. And be sure that he knows what you know. Etc.
The paradox is that often people require coordination of each hair on the logo, despite the fact that they do not distinguish the domain from the provider, and in case of problems, overlays, the bases are completely unprepared.
You must either figure out the distribution of roles in the project yourself, or have a trustee who monitors the situation.
Let it be the same contractor who makes the site, then say the responsibility, give credentials and pay for this work.
Everyone is interested in the project. Let's work in concert.
As a result, many projects break deadlines, require more investments, and as a result, their quality and economic effect from the launch are worse than expected. What to do?
What to do to order a site correctly
That's right - it means getting what you wanted, at the right time and with sufficient quality of the product and services.
0. State your goal
What do you want to get?
What audience is your product for?
What do you want to achieve in a year or two?
What tasks will you solve on the network, which ones will be done only in the offline part of the business? How can these events change in the next year or two?
What changes in the proposed goods and services do you predict?
What web product management features will you retain, which ones will be transferred to employees, which ones will be assigned to contractors?
The result of the formulation of the goal should be the concept of the project, setting the task at the top level. It is stated in 5 minutes, on paper it takes exactly 1 sheet. Do not try to write a multi-volume TK; at the moment this is not necessary.
The main questions: who, when, what, and for what purpose will do with the application of the future web project.
1. Choose adequate performers
Adequate - that means those who take normal human pay for their work. Estimate how many person-months you need to produce the product you need, estimate the price of 1 month of work of a qualified specialist in your region and add taxes, rent, communication, advertising and reasonable profit.
Adequate - means having a clear portfolio and market-oriented web services. There should be at least one job in the portfolio that is similar in complexity to yours.
Adequate - means having a horizons in those business problems that you plan to solve and are able to express their opinion.
upd . There is a fairly simple way to evaluate the actual complexity of the site. The fact is that less than 3 people rarely deal with the site, so the complexity should be considered in man-days or man-months. How to find out: ask questions to the person with whom you are discussing the future of the project: who will work and how much time. The answer may sound, for example, like this:
The project manager deals with your project on average 2 hours a day for a month, the designer spends 2 work weeks, the programmer spends 2 work weeks, then the project manager with the staff responsible for filling spend the entire work week on the preparation and placement of content.
Total 1.75 man-months.
2. Enter into a
contract . A contract should be read, if possible with a lawyer, to draw the attention of contractors to everything that seems incomprehensible, superfluous, incorrect, unwritten to you. Nobody will specifically throw you, but it is important that you and the contractor equally understand all the essential details. Feel free to ask for important points to be recorded.
Particularly important: terms, cost, copyright, warranty, technical support and reuse of what they do for you.
The market situation is such that the conclusion of a specific sensible agreement is useful to everyone. Cases of fraud are unknown to me, but conflicts rapidly developing right up to a break in relations, the death of a project and massacre because of a misunderstanding are very common.
The contract must necessarily indicate: what, when (from ... to ... or to ...), by whom and for what money will be made. In large contracts, each issue is covered by the application (amounts, TK, schedule, sequence of interaction, responsible persons).
If you work with a freelancer, then after all the correspondence, compose one letter describing the work, timing and payment, and send it to him. He must answer: yes, that's right. This will be the contract.
3. Get Ready to Promote
Many, many things you must do. These are:
- transfer of all materials available for you and necessary for the project in a digestible form. A pile of yellow paper or “there is a petya in the warehouse, he will tell you everything” - into the firebox. Respect the contractor.
- making decisions. The contractor is obliged to advise you, propose options, tell without hesitation about the pros, cons, features and consequences of actions (the better he does it - the higher his level), but you decide. Depending on the adopted model, you will either make the main decision “the contractor is responsible for everything, up to the percentage of profit” or you will consciously choose between joomla and drupal and the colors of all banners. It is important that you make a decision consciously, with the certainty that you don’t get a cat in a poke, and in any case be responsible for your decisions. Do not put your responsibility on the contractor.
4. Delegate authority
- to the contractor. Do not try to control every step. Do not demand a daily report and do not ask, “why does it leave here like this?” Do not try to check and verify the quality of each comma. The situation in web technologies is such that on the whole your task will be solved, but some specific instructions that seem simple and natural to you will turn out to be almost impossible. You have chosen professionals? it means that they do not harm and do not fill the price, but they say it as it is: it is impossible to do it or it’s better not to do it . Trust in the professionalism of your chosen people.
- to their employees. If your project is any big, you will not work alone. You may have a deputy, wife, secretary, photographer, merchandiser or full-time designer. Decide in advance what you and only you will decide, and what your colleagues will decide. You can close all decisions only to yourself, but then the quality will deteriorate, and the terms will increase. If you surrendered, try not to take them back. Do not terrorize the project with impulsive decisions.
5. Do not forget to accept work and pay.
Very often, a project freezes at the stage of “85% ready,” but it’s full of bugs and everything crawls from everywhere. Then the developers plow, the project manager is nervous, the customer is waiting with fear. If so - give people a week, they will do a lot.
If you occasionally see non-critical errors, errors, something annoys you, but in principle corresponds to the task, goals and common sense, show honesty and generosity, accept and pay for the work.
You are not working with these people for the last time, and the worst thing you can do is to pull the receipt to the last comma. Firstly, next time you will be billed with a margin in the category "nerd, + 100%", and secondly, often these "last bugs" have no meaning, but require effort comparable with the whole project. Make compromises.
What should not be done
0. Agree on proposals in the style of "I understand, I will do it tomorrow."
The option is “well before the session for sure” and offers, the price of which is more than 2 times lower than the average market price. The chances of getting a low-quality product sharply increase, three times late and with an error on the main page. Free cheese - and further on.
1. To give 100% prepayment
Even if there is an agreement and conscience, the contractor out of cowardice, laziness and greed can leave you alone with the unfinished project at the time of the crisis, offering to sue.
2. Start without prepayment.
People who are ready to start working without an advance, either do not value their work, or trust you infinitely.
3. Sign without reading
The consequences are obvious. The 90s have passed, you won’t be able to put the designer on the knives, but you will have to pay for the alteration of the accepted, and twice - with money and missed deadlines.
4. Considering that the site is a panacea for all ills and a direct path to a million dollars
Any web project is nothing more than a tool. A special, specific, but an instrument. He will not replace you with either a merchandiser, or a director, or logistics, for accounting. With proper goal setting and planning, he is able to save a lot of energy by taking on the routine and mechanical operations of these characters. And pay for it.
5. Release the situation out of control
Always know who is responsible for each question. When creating a site, you will interact (possibly through intermediaries) with many services and organizations. You do not have to know the admin of the hoster personally, but you need to know exactly who to ask. And let him know too. And be sure that he knows what you know. Etc.
The paradox is that often people require coordination of each hair on the logo, despite the fact that they do not distinguish the domain from the provider, and in case of problems, overlays, the bases are completely unprepared.
You must either figure out the distribution of roles in the project yourself, or have a trustee who monitors the situation.
Let it be the same contractor who makes the site, then say the responsibility, give credentials and pay for this work.
Everyone is interested in the project. Let's work in concert.