Each web development project is its own animal. It behaves uniquely and deserves unique care, but each project also has a common thread. Because most of our clients are scattered across the country and the world, it highlights the importance of communication. Here are some things we have learned and what we have done to keep our clients' Drupal projects running seamlessly.
Our experience
- Communication. The amount of communication needed during a project is directly related to the scope of the project. If the scope is bigger and involves a more involved feature set, it is necessary to budget more time to understand and communicate how they expect each feature will work. We have found that preparing for phone calls is more efficient when we have clear goals for each meeting. Clear lines of communication make any project run smoother.
- Budget. Understanding your business goals is important to allocating your budget to your primary calls to action. Focusing on your primary calls to action will help us evaluate the best way to optimize your budget and return on investment. This focus normally translates into adding polish to the appropriate calls to action and, as a rule of thumb, the more polish a site has, the bigger the budget.
- Business Goals. Our ability to create an amazing website is based on knowing exactly what the client's business goals are. The better we understand our client's business goals, the better we can leverage technology to meet those goals. By asking them the right questions, we can ascertain what they need.
Summary
All of these areas are important to establish at the beginning of the project, so everyone is clear about the expectations and goals. Time spent on the discovery phase is the most valuable because it creates a clear, actionable plan for the deliverable and ensures a long-lasting relationship.
Do you have a story of a project you did? Let us know in the comments!
Photo by isawnyu