With the Web becoming more prominent in everyone's life, it is only
natural that sooner or later many people will end up being involved
in a Web development project, either as a client or, why not, a
developer. Trouble is, most people -- on both sides! -- don't really
know how to conduct such a project, and they end up running into the
same problems again and again. This tends to lead to stress and losses
on both sides, which is too bad, because after 11 years of working in
this field I can pinpoint almost all failures to the same few causes.
Let's see what they are and how you can prevent things from going awry.
Estimating
Advice for the client: don't ask for ridiculously precise estimates.
So, you've just given the developer the elevator pitch for your
project and asked for a time and cost estimate. No offense, but
do you seriously expect to receive more than an educated guess
at this time? If you have a hard deadline and/or budget limit,
say so. But don't ask for a prediction of the future; you might as
well use Tarot divination to find out how the project will unroll.
Advice for the dev: help the client understand why you can't give them.
Look, it's easy to forget that your client is a layman, but he has no
reason to know all the things you do; explain politely that software
development is not like building houses or bridges, and even these
activities are fraught with uncertainty. Do give an order-of-magnitude
estimate, you can be that precise and it's better than nothing.
Specifications
Advice for the client: tell the developer what you want to achieve.
This may come as a surprise to you, but Web developers cannot read
your mind. Nor can they divine the functioning of a third-party
Web service just by looking at it. Doesn't work that way. Better yet,
don't try telling the developer how your application should operate;
there's too much detail, you can't think of everything, and you're
probably not qualified to design it anyway. Just explain what you want
it to do. If you can't even do that easily, you're overthinking.
Advice for the developer: lead the development process, it's your job.
See above. Your client is most likely a layman, with no understanding
of how software is designed. Worse, decades of childish portrayals in
the media have created the impression that it's some kind of magic.
Do your best to educate, ask the right questions and generally guide
things along; that can go a long way.
Development
Advice for the client: don't vanish into a black hole until the deadline.
You may think the developer is some kind of assembly line cranking out
the 937,546th identical car, but this is not so. If he could have
reused existing software, it would all have been done in 5 minutes.
The whole reason he's building from scratch is that your project is
-- to a degree -- unlike any other that came before. And that means
he needs your feedback. So watch your communication channels. Answer
e-mail, check the previews and mockups you receive and generally be
there.
Advice for the developer: too much communication is better than none.
Keep in mind that the client can't read your mind any more than you
can read his. So take the time at the end of each day to send e-mail
explaining your progress, highlighting problem spots and asking for
specific feedback. In the long term, it will benefit you at least as
much as it does the client, by minimizing delays and misunderstandings.
Wrapping up
A software development project is only "done" when you pull the plug.
This is doubly true on the Web, where every little change instantly
reaches all visitors of a particular site, and every little change
can have a disproportionate effect. And since you can't predict the
future anyway, a contract saying "payment will be done after delivery
of the finished project" is a recipe for disaster (possibly of the
legal kind). You'll need to agree on some clearly defined milestones,
but! that's not easy either, as things may change along the way. Be
flexible yet focused. What was the project supposed to achieve, again?
General advice
Be respectful to each other.
That should be obvious, but it's surprising how many people forget
this most basic of rules.
Developer, remember that the client worked hard for those money he's
willing to pay you. It's only natural to expect some value in return.
Also, he's not an idiot; he's just an expert in other things than you.
Client, remember that the developer has years and years of study and
experience behind him; he's not your servant, nor a menial worker.
He's a highly skilled expert and you need him, or someone else just
like him.
There you go. You should be able to start off the right foot now.
Client vs. Web developer: a quick guide by Felix Pleșoianu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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