Mon, May 7, 2018
Read in 3 minutes
This post is for developer who work in a company or as a freelancer. I will share some of the tips that I use in my career for achieving my project goals. These tips will also help to make a good relationship with your client.
Overview:
● Documentation
● Project Goals
● Milestone and Meeting
Documentation:
Before accepting any Project Proposal check whether the client has proper documentation or not because a project can only be successfully completed if it has proper documentation as documentation is the first step for starting a project. So, before accepting any project make sure that Client has documentation. There may be a case where the client doesn’t have any documentation or poor documentation, well, in that case, you need do it yourself by discussing each and every aspect of the project with the client before starting the project. I had such a project which had very poor documentation, I started by discussing an overview of the project. After few months, I realised that the project has no end as while developing and testing the client was adding new features and modifies the existing features during the development phase. So, due to imperfect documentation, I had to rework over the same features which were huge time wastage for me, my team and client. As a result, the project never went for Production.
So, spend time on documentation/planning instead of wasting time on discussions/rework on same features of the project.
Project Goals:
The next step comes is Project Goals. The developer must fully understand the project according to:
● Client goals
● Customer/User goals of the project(product)
The developer should know the client goals, how the client trying to help his users with the product that he is trying to build and in what he is going make a profit.
Knowing the customer goal is very crucial for a developer because in the market there may be ample products with similar features. So, a developer should know how the product is going to attract customers with its different features.
By knowing the requirements properly you will be able to provide your suggestions to the client for building a better product which will result in a better relationship between you and your client.
Milestone and Meeting:
After accepting a project with perfect documentation the next phase come is Development Phase. In this phase, the initial step is creating milestones for delivering the project in time. Create weekly milestones and do meetings daily/weekly with your client for showing your progress. Doing frequent meeting will help you to gain the trust of the client.
In case, if no milestones and discussions are done you will end up delaying the project delivery due to which you will make your bond week with your client.
Milestones also help to work on many projects simultaneously and will increase your productivity.
By using above tips I was able to handle 2–3 projects at a time. I hope these tips will also help in your career.
If you know someone who might extract value please share. I’ll be looking for your opinion and suggestions in the comments, feedback is always welcome.
Also, to be notified about my new articles and stories, follow me on Medium and Twitter. You can find me on LinkedIn as well. Cheers!