Ask HN: How do you keep projects on schedule?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6447456

by marcomassaro • 13 years ago

5 2 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

For those of you here that work as a freelance developer, designer or something else, what do you do to keep projects on schedule?

We've all had the projects where the client takes a week to give feedback or get a important document to you, which slows down your process and business.

Interested to hear what others do to keep the project on time and keep things moving. I've heard a lot of people putting in "penalty" clauses in their agreements where the client is charged for not reaching certain deadlines etc.

hashtree• 13 years ago

I work almost solely off retainer, wear the project manager from time-to-time, and communicate stopped progress via email and GitHub issues (I use it as a simple project management tool).

Things typically move as expected, and working off retainer definitely provides an incentive for them to get back on schedule. However, a lot of being a successful freelancer is having skills outside of technology. I might even argue they are more important. Clients are always blown away from what I would think are essential skills of the trade: honesty, communication, documentation, planning, setting expectations, pushing third-party developers to hold up their end, being positive, etc. If you can provide those at a high level of competency, I have found very few people/orgs are tough to deal with. In fact, it works so well that I have companies perpetually buy slices of my time each week, give numerous recommendations to others, present our work to others/conferences praising the relationship, etc... based purely on the project management aspects (tech competency does this too). I say this only to communicate that the typical "hassles" we all experience as developers can be turned into an asset/talent that many companies desire (e.g. hey this guy/gal not only knows tech, but can also keep projects moving for fast deliverables).

grumps• 13 years ago

I'm a PM of sorts, I don't do freelance but I do work for a small web agency. We're a fairly friendly bunch of people and don't fine or penalize clients for delays. That being said I'm the mean PM in the company.

This will all solely depend on your clients, their needs, and goals. Most of the time they have some sort of goal time frame for which they want to launch. You should offer them a visual schedule, and in that schedule allocate the time they have for feedback. I usually state 2 business days across the board. I also make it very clear at the initial kick off of the project that delays in feedback automatically extend the delivery date to of the final product. I also inform them I don't pad my schedule (I actually do, sometimes). It's also important to clearly communicate when feedback is due. I often include a mini chart, of when each feedback is due in each communication, again just to hammer the point. It would also be important to pull dates from the client of when they might have issues making those deadlines, ie we have a conference, board meeting, etc.

Internally this is a total issue for small companies or freelancers. I would add into your services contract that that delays of X% or value can result in a change order. Additionally it might result in a drop in resource availability for the project. Also - you might state that the project could be set to be delayed by your company and replaced with other projects while the delay occurs and will be subject to re-scheduling, of course this could totally fuck up your pipeline too. I would recommend termination, and cancellation, in particular if you bill against line items and you don't typically stay with in line item budgets.

Ask HN: How do you keep projects on schedule?

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