It’s obvious, good communication is paramount when it comes to developing (and more importantly completing) a project successfully for a client. This can be done in three ways. The first is progress meetings whether that’s on site with the client or at your studio / office. With the cloud, laptops and flash drives these meetings can be arranged anytime, anyplace. BUT, time is money. Travelling to and from locations has a monetary cost, as well as a time implication. Meetings are a necessary evil (we mean this in a good way though, I’m sure you get where we’re coming from!). The second are telephone calls and Skype meetings. These are probably the least forgiving as misinterpretations occur and can delay the progress. The third is using an online project management tool.
We are currently undertaking a project which to us is a massive step up. Its value alone warrants the client’s access anytime to project status and updates 24/7. For this web development project (as opposed to our usual marketing projects where processes and methods are different to web development projects) we opted to use Basecamp, having used Mavenlink previously, which worked perfectly, but we thought for this project we would try a new project management tool. The one we chose was Basecamp. We set up the project, added the clients, set up the initial project timeline and programme. The layout is simple, straightforward and effective. Within minutes of setting up the project we have everything in place. We and clients alike are notified with anything added on Basecamp by email, and one is able to respond to this directly by email or link to Basecamp itself. I know this is not groundbreaking, but, if you’re like us, you don’t experiment then you’ll never know if your current project management tool is working most effectively for you.
We have eliminated the need for site meetings and numerous telephone conversations simply by adding posts to Basecamp with visual aids. It has been a very effective tool so far and our client is actively using the tool their end too. At any point they can request an update, send us comments and amendments and we can reply as and when necessary. Neither of us are tied down and we can progress and input and any time. It really is a breath of fresh air and at the moment, a pretty priceless asset.
We have only been using it a week, obviously we haven’t used every function, but when we do, we will write another blog about our favourite functions and if anything can be improved on.
