A clear plan leads to a successful project

Anytime you are dealing with a client, whether external or internal such as a boss or executive, projects have the potential to explode into something much larger than initially intended.  Scope creep effects everyone, and in some cases if its in regard to project for a superior, you might not normally have much you can do to prevent it.  Below I will outline a few approaches to take in avoiding this, and at least keep it manageable; so that your client is happy with the progress, and you are getting some sense of completion along the way.

1. Have a clear initial plan.

This entails sitting down and sketching out a prototype of the design.  Whether just a sketch or an actual semi functional prototype, you need something that the client will agree to as a good starting point.  Beyond design and user interface asthetics, a lot of time should be put into menu items, color schemes, and features that need to initially be functional.  This is the information architecture part of a project.  Getting a solid idea of how your client foresees users actually clicking through your site or application can provide a lot of insight into what their expecting of the project.  The more you do now to define features you feel could end up growing in scope, the more defined your project is.

2. Set milestones.

Milestones are the easiest way to get some sense of accomplishment when working on a large project.  If you have a website with 5 sections, each section could be a milestone.  Upon completion go over this section with the client and make sure you have addressed everything that was in the initial plan.  If they start to see things that will need improvement, add the items to an improvement plan that can be discussed and started upon completion of the intial project.  Depending on the size of the project, portions of the payment can be distributed upon the client acknowledging the completion of each milestone.

3. Get the client to sign off on the plan.

People are getting very smart in not signing something that they don’t agree with entirely.  Make sure you have an email or contract detailing the scope of the project, and for features you foresee a lot of change, have the client initial beside the specifications for each feature.  This gives the client a chance to rework the documentation if they think of a new feature that is requisite from the initial launch or different functionality for a certain feature, and it gives you a tangible document indicating that everything was defined and agreed upon.

4. Accept new changes or features as future improvements.

When new feature requests come in state that they are out of the scope of what was initially discussed and that they will need to be added as improvements upon completion of the initial project.  Obviously this has the potential to alienate clients on a tight budget, but you don’t want to be doing work for free.  Set a meeting a week or two after the completion of the initial project to discuss how it is working for them, what shortcomings they see in the initial project, and what features they require in future iterations.

5. Be straight forward with the client.

A wise approach to projects is breaking it up into phases or versions, which are essentially customer business milestones.  As much as it may at first sound like a way to guarantee you’ll never have business, its really the more business way of approaching a project.  Most clients will start with an initial budget, and if the project starts to take off will acquiring more funding to flesh out the project.  You as a designer or developer can’t dedicate all of your time to this one project, as you likely have other clients to keep happy.  Letting a customer know right from the start that a lot of projects  have the potential to grow into something much larger than initially realized safeguards your reputation and lets them know you’ve got some experience working on large projects.

6. Communicate.

As your working on the project you will likely see the potential for new features and different design approaches.  Let the customer know your ideas and thoughts, and record them as something to discuss upon completion of the project as things that could be added to make the product stronger.  You will likely get a lot of dated or just plain bad requests and ideas from the client, and in some cases explaining how you disagree with the idea and how you would address the issue can give the client a lot more trust in your ability.  Also, make sure to send updated every couple days to let them know what has been accomplished and what has yet to be completed.  When you take your car to a mechanic, you wait by the phone to hear what was wrong, how they fixed it, and how much it will be.  Anyone giving you money will have the same anxiety, they want to be updated so they can get a glance at the product when its available to see that their money is going in the right direction.

In conclusion, poorly planned projects have the potential to severely hurt a customer relationship in that you can feel overworked and as though your not making money, and the client can feel as though they didn’t get their moneys worth out of the project.  Think of any pitfalls a project could have during the planning stages and address them to the client and see what their reaction was.  Its a lot easier to turn down a project with inherent scope creep before you even get started.