Doing Projects With Us

If we decide to do a project together, we have very precise standards that we follow for every project.  Your interaction with us is guided by these standards for a number of reasons but the motivation is to deliver quality services and products.   We've learned clients like it when we keep them in the loop and finish things on time for an amount they expected -- or less.

Everything we do flows through Taskhopper -- at least on our end. We realize you may have your own management processes, and we're not even hinting that you consider other options.  We're just letting you know how we work and how you might benefit from this.

Here's a simple step-by-step list of a small project.  In this case, we assume someone local is acting on our end to help gather requirements.

1. Meet/talk/exchange doc files to understand client expectations

2. Write statement of work to contain expected scope

3. Break notes/docs into tasks with one control task and billing milestones.   (or whatever is agreed as per the SOW)

4. Add all tasks into TaskHopper including est. hours for each

5. Append task list to statement of work to support scope

6. Add final page to SOW that defines time and estimated cost

Here's a PDF example from a recent project. Before we start the work, the client gets an empty task list and they are also given a login ID to our system allowing them to view/comment on any task as it's being done.   We sometimes mandate this if we're doing anything that requires incremental client approval. e.g. Do you like it now?   How about now?  Now?   At the end of the task, if we have 17 yes responses, we generally feel pretty comfortable the final product will get a yes too.

When emails arrive asking for something new, and they do, the request is entered into Taskhopper and prioritized accordingly.   Any work that we do outside of the original SOW is logged as SCP (Scope Creep or Pushback) so we have a way to explain any delays or overages.   (Pushback is when something requested is later unrequested)

When the billing milestone is due, we summarize all tasks, comments and attachments into a single PDF and generate the invoice.  With this method, there are rarely any doubts about what work was done, when and by whom.   Because of the client input, many of the incremental task buy-offs are already noted within.

When the project is finished, we deliver the product along with all communication that shaped the design.   If the project should run longer than expected, having all the details can be a valuable lessons learned tool.

What do projects cost?
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