Two Ways To Satisfy Clients
Clients approach Transparen with unique business requirements, ideas, and timelines. Meeting these requirements is often accomplished in two possible ways. One way is expensive and will take a long time, and, although we are experienced enough to provide ballpark estimates, the costs and timelines are unknown and unknowable. The other way provides insights early on and enables the clients to participate in decision-making that will impact the final outcome while also making it possible to predict timelines and costs. Clients who choose the latter route can sail through the rest of the project with fewer surprises and often a much shorter timeline and lower bottom-line capital requirements.
The First Part of Project Management is the Design Process
In our experience with projects and project management, the best results have been obtained when clients engaged Transparen for a consultative design process for projects with budgets greater than one thousand dollars, or, more generally, in any situation where there were concerns about being able to predict the final cost and the amount of time that will be required.
The Design Process Creates a Project Plan
A consultative design process is important because making as many decisions as early as possible allows for a mutual understanding of the big picture and creates a common vision, or a project plan, which enables software developers to concentrate on their individual components without needing to worry about whether they really understand the whole of what needs to be done.
Project Plan Reduces Risks of Late Projects
Without a project plan, a project may become very late and may far exceed its budget, even if the majority of work is performed by inexpensive software developers in India or Pakistan, since there will be misunderstandings about what the developers are supposed to accomplish. On the other hand, a project could come in on-time and under-budget even performed by the most expensive developers in Canada, the USA, Great Britain, or Ireland if the design decisions have been made carefully and with the support of the project sponsors. Once a solid plan is in place, it is then possible to generate a reasonably accurate estimate of how much time and money will be involved in the follow through.
