Excerpt from How To Bring Your Project In On Budget

Having been in web development for quite some time, you start to recognize obvious signs that indicate whether a project will come in on budget or not. From our experience, there are 5 'fail-safe' steps that can help your project come in on time

  • Do your level best to specify your project as fully as you can at the outset.

    Clearly if you add lots of features as you go along, you can expect your budget and timeframe to change.

  • Planning & preparation.

    If you are able to bring your project to fruition quickly, you will find your cost to be lower than if it drags on. If at all possible, prepare all the resources your programmer will need in advance. If not, try to stay ahead of what they need.

  • Budget time with your developers.

    Many inexperienced clients hope they can give a job to their programmers and the next time they will need to be involved is cracking open a bottle of champagne. Life doesn't work like that. Budget time each day to spend with your developers, looking at what they have done, answering questions and giving feedback.

  • Break your project into phases.

    Instead of keeping making changes to the current project, bundle up the changes you notice as you go along and, as far as possible, add those changes to phase 2. "Specification drift" is one of the primary reasons projects fall behind.

  • Track your project closely

    . Don't wait weeks and then wonder why your project is behind. If you want to see your project comes in on time, hold the programmers responsible for writing code and hold yourself responsible for project management. Yes, good developers will be doing this also but it is your responsibility to keep track of things as they progress.

There are few guarantees in life and we can't guarantee that just following the rules above WILL get your project in on time. But it certainly will help.

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