Time, money, quality - pick 2. Or aim for value.
If you want quick results, hire a team of experts at a big expense.
If you're on a budget, interns will save you money but take longer.
If you want the highest quality, it will take time and money.
As someone spending time and money on a project, you should understand the purpose of your work and seek to produce the most valuable outcome.
A premium product goes through many design and development iterations to reach it's final form.
Products begin with a proof of concept. A rough prototype that meets basic requirements, or a minimum viable product.
The system is tested by people, feedback is collected, and improvements are made.
Solving real problems attracts paying customers to afford ongoing development.
A small business needs a new ecommerce site to sell their clothing.
Shopify can get them up and running quickly with a nice template.
As the business grows, a developer may be needed for customizations.
Early on, they look for low cost solutions.
Over time, more premium services are needed to attract customers in a competitive marketplace.
Developers are always pressed for time.
They either have too much work on their plate and need to get things out the door.
Or they want to do their best but are always finding things to improve.
Good developers focus their efforts on the things that matter.
Clients have a limited budget.
They need to get as much done as possible.
Vendors have different strengths and weaknesses in any given project.
Working together, you can maximize your output by finding valuable things to focus on.
The first iteration of the site took the owner a weekend to build.
They shot some product photos and uploaded them to the site builder.
A merch table at a convention and some social media posts built up steady revenue over the first year.
The owner wants to grow the business, but doesn't know the next step.
A web developer they meet talks about web marketing and has some ideas for improving the shopping experience.
They work for a week, brainstorming the future of the business, and the options for making improvements.
There is too much to do on the current budget, so they will have to prioritize between what they can afford and the value it will bring.
Choosing high value, low effort upgrades that increase revenue will open up more time for harder improvements in the future.
A social media manager is contracted to write posts and manage a newsletter.
At first, the owner was doing this, but it took too much time and attention.
Various plugins were added to the site that allowed them to expand quickly, but the monthly fees add up and they're not really a streamlined experience.
How can they improve from here? What problems should be resolved, what can they optimize, and what new things could they add?
A project manager will work with them to understand the value of different options and come up with a roadmap that balances priorities and costs.
The ecommerce store needs an upgrade.
The business has done some branding work, and has a new logo and color palette.
They want to launch a redesigned site with enhanced features by the end of the year.
Vendors they're talking to offer bids that outline what they'll do and potential costs.
The most important thing is that they get the promised results within the time and budget.
The second most important is choosing a vendor that will serve them best, according to their capability and how available and affordable they are to the client.
Vendors tend to charge more as their capabilities expand. Find one in the sweet spot that can deliver on your needs without wasting resources.
Regular check ins with the client are essential for aligning priorities and setting expectations.
You provide expertise on your capabilities and provide updates on your progress.
Explaining the value of your work and showing where your time has gone keeps the project on track.
Everything can be polished further, but it's important to recognize when the value has been delivered and it's ok to move on to the next thing.
You can always return to improve something that has limitations on the first iteration.
Moving too fast creates bugs.
When modifying a system, we need to ensure new updates don't break existing features.
Edge cases should be considered so things don't crash in production.
Testing helps prevent regressions and ensure new features meet requirements.
The vendor needs to use their expertise to vouch for the work and call out limitations.
Time is needed to ensure things are working and fix bugs.
Don't move on to the next task until you're reasonably certain your code works well.
Reflect on your process.
At the end of the project or phase, do a retrospective.
The team should discuss what went well, and where they could improve.
This helps establish best practices, share knowledge internally, and highlights capabilities they can bolster.
It also uncovers recommendations on next steps to share with the client.
Seek feedback from stakeholders to evaluate where improvements should be made.