Project Management of Smaller Plone CMS Projects

Veda Williams, a project manager at One/Northwest who manages many a Plone implementation, gave us all here at the Plone Conference some advice on best practices for managing smaller Plone Web content management projects.

I found a lot of her presentation extremely familiar, as it meshed very well with my own experiences, and frankly, it all applies to any tech project, not just Plone.

For project managers, success means that a project is on time, in scope, has a clean implementation, quantifiable results and provides personal satisfaction.

Guidelines to Worship

Here are some guidelines we can all relate to:

• Do the paperwork — don't get lazy about it
• Scope consistently for all clients
• Review project status frequently
• Minimize hand-offs and disconnects
• Follow through and finish lingering details
• Ask for feedback and take it to heart
• Do proper, ongoing postmortems

Document your project!

• Write functional specifications someone else can understand
• Do this BEFORE design starts
• Get sign-off from the client
• Document exactly what will and will not be covered by the scope — products to install, number of design revs, etc. You need to balance the level of detail — too much detail and the specification will be impossible to maintain (and nobody will read it). Too little detail and it will be useless.
• Take notes on any important conversations, and keep those in front of you during the project
• Update your project database with any status changes (in design, implementing, ready for invoicing)
• Review checklists regularly to make sure all to-dos are being addressed
• Log your hours consistently

Define a Realistic and Consistent Scope

When scoping a project, the things to consider are:

• Complexity of design
• Custom home page vs. a single design
• Overall level of tweaking required to make the design work in Plone
• How deep do you want to go with a client?
• Write work orders for additional design revisions

Know Your Tools

When choosing your tech toolset, keep these in mind:

• Use a consistent set of proven, stable products
• Bill for innovation
• Know the level of implementation difficulty and cover your back side

Caveat Venditor

Know your clients. Learn to detect signs of a special client. Respect your previous history with a client and increase scope time for needy / difficult clients

Time Spent on a Project

• Each phase is allotted an estimated, reproducible number of hours
• Build extra time into the project management phase
• Price competitively and realistically, but remember that charging a lower price is oftentimes perceived as lower quality

Billing — Fixed Bid vs. Time and Materials

• It's extremely hard for developers to quote on a flat rate basis
• Unknowns — client responsiveness/neediness, snag in implementation, scope creep, repeatability can be overestimated
• Helps to have a ballpark “flat rate” which also takes into account hourly estimates

How and When to Bill

• Require a deposit
• Second invoice upon design completion
• Final invoice on implementation completion

Project Status Review

Find a system that works for you:

• iGTD has changed Veda's life (iGTD is a Mac application that implements David Allen's “Getting Things Done” system that is so popular among the technorati these days.
• Basecamp (an online project management tool from 37 Signals) for small details
• File your email every day
• Review your list of projects every day and prioritize
• Hold “stand-up” meetings with colleagues to relay status and identify problems/needs

Use a Database

One/Northwest uses SalesForce.com.

Project Management of Smaller Plone CMS Projects

\n\nVeda Williams, a project manager at One/Northwest who manages many a Plone implementation, gave us all here at the Plone Conference some advice on best practices for managing smaller Plone Web content management projects. \n\nI found a lot of her presentation extremely familiar, as it meshed very well with my own experiences, and frankly, it all applies to any tech project, not just Plone.

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