This document provides tips for successful project management when developing small Plone sites. It emphasizes the importance of thorough documentation, clear scoping, consistent processes, effective communication and follow up. Key aspects include writing functional specifications, tracking project status in a database, using checklists to track tasks, minimizing handoffs, reviewing projects frequently, soliciting client feedback, and identifying areas for process improvement.

1. Project Management Secrets:
A Disciplined Approach to
Developing Small Plone Sites

2. What makes a
successful project?
• Delivering a project on time
• Delivering a project within scope
• Cleanliness of implementation
• Quantifiable results
• Personal satisfaction?
• Client happiness / engagement?

3. Guidelines
• Do the paperwork!!
• Scope consistently for all clients
• Review project status frequently
• Minimize handoffs / disconnects
• Follow through and finish lingering details
• Ask for feedback and take it to heart
• Do proper, ongoing postmortems

4. Document your project (1)
• Write functional specifications someone else can
understand
• Do this BEFORE design starts and get signoff from
the client before starting
• Document exactly what will and will not be
covered by the scope - products to install, # of
design revs.
• Take notes on any important conversations, and
keep those in front of you during the project

5. Document your project (2)
• 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

6. Scoping:
Be consistent

7. Scoping Components (1)
• 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 revs

8. Scoping Components (2)
• Selection of products
• Use a consistent set of proven, stable products
• Or, bill for innovation
• Difficulty of implementation of products

9. Scoping Components (3)
• Previous history with a client
• Increase scope time for needy / difficult clients
• Risky and hard to quantify

10. Scoping Components (4)
• Time spent on the project
• Each phase of the project is allotted an
estimated, reproducible number of hours
• Build extra time into project management
phase
• Price yourself competitively and realistically

11. Billing:
Flat rate vs hourly
• Hard 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

12. Scoping Components (3)
• Example $7,000 ONE/NW project:
Project intake: 3 hours
Design: 10-12 hours
Site buildout: 2 hours
Project Management: 10 hours
Training: 5 hours
Implementation: 12 hours
Evaluation / QA: 10 hours
Site launch: 1 hour
Total hours: 50
• Project is probably underscoped
• How to track staff training time?

13. How and when to bill
• 3 Phase Billing System = Engagement
• First bill due when project commences
• Second bill when design is complete
• Third bill when implementation is complete

14. Project Status:
Review it frequently

15. Project Status:
Self-Organization
• Find a system that works for you
• iGTD has changed my life
• Basecamp 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

16. Project Status:
Use a Database
• ONE/NW uses Salesforce
• Can create an account and multiple
opportunities
• Can track almost any detail you want, from
training to timesheets
• Can see a project timeline, up against other
concurrent projects
• Reusable templates

17. Project Status:
Basecamp Checklists
• Better for recording minor details, not
milestones
• Website project start
• Client To-Dos
• Design
• Implementation
• Go-Live
• Focus: Client To-Dos and Go Live stages

18. Client To-Dos Checklist
• Clients are often overwhelmed by the number of
checklist items in Basecamp
• Generally pull these items out of Basecamp and
work through them via email or telephone

19. Go Live Checklist
• Often seems like there is a backlog at this phase
• Time constraints are also tight
• Need to move some of the tasks from this phase
earlier into the process

20. Correspondence &
Communication:
Write it down!

21. Keeping track of client
conversations
• Important details should be captured -- with date,
time, persons involved so that scope creep can be
tracked
• Additional people on a project need to stay
informed
• Extra insurance in case someone leaves a project
mid-way
• File these in a central repository, i.e. on a shared
server, in a folder specifically for that opportunity

22. Minimize Handoffs /
Disconnects

23. Handoffs:
Internal and external
• We have outside designers and outside skinners
• Internal handoffs from strategists to PMs
• Be consistent in what you give people during a
handoff
• Formal introduction
• Design survey
• Wireframe / Site map

24. Follow Through and
Finish Those Lingering
Details!

25. Check in with the client
• Constant review, reminder of scope
agreement
• Make sure they review and approve the site
• Push for training
• Check the deliverable against the scope
• Suggest a work order / phase two for
additional changes

26. Wrap up
• Remember to invoice
• Provide documentation, esp. for special
features
• Test the site thoroughly and ask for
assistance
• Change DNS settings and test again!
• Celebrate the launch with them!

27. Postmortem
• Ask client for feedback.
• Use a form with quantifiable questions, and
leave room for additional comments
• Analyze stats over time to gauge
improvement / reduced effectiveness

28. Process Improvements
• Do a better job of analyzing metrics
• Long-term follow-up with client
• Improve scoping estimates to properly
account for consistent overages
• Communicate with clients more effectively
• Do more face-to-face communication, esp.
for training
• Get more eyes on a project