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The Ruby Freelancers Show 033 – Managing Client Expectations
About this Episode
Panel Evan Light (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Discussion
01:30 - Dealing with unrealistic expectations 03:13 - “The Iron Triangle” Cost Performance Schedule 04:02 - Bad management 05:07 - Establishing expectations Prioritizing Schedule & Budget 08:08 - Rescue Clients & Projects 11:34 - Developers are not interchangeable 12:03 - Approaching a project 13:55 - Business owner and end user communication 16:58 - Client Communication Trade-offs Hired guns 21:47 - Amateurs vs Professionals 24:04 - Managing communication expectations 28:57 - Engagement & Evaluation of process 34:24 - Wrapping up a project 38:36 - Types of projects Clearly defined outcomes Ongoing 42:23 - Client domains 47:33 - Influencing clients and teams towards better practices 50:30 - Clients that don’t want your input
Picks Kalzumeus Blog (Eric) gfxCardStatus (Jim) The New CTO: Uncle Bob (Jim) Verizon LTE (Evan) Kalzumeus Podcast 3: Growing Consulting Practices, with Brennan Dunn (Jeff) IBM 168 | Earning Passive Income with Software, an Interview with Dane Maxwell (Jeff) Anvil for Mac (Jeff) Transcript
JIM: Are we the optimal people to talk about this? EVAN: Oh, god. How long are we going to spend figuring this out? [Are you a busy Ruby developer who wants to take their freelance business to the next level? Interested in working smarter not harder? Then check out the upcoming book “Next Level Freelancing: Developer Edition” Practical Steps to Work Less, Travel and Make More Money. It includes interviews and case studies with successful freelancers, who have made it by expanding their consultancy, develop passive income through informational products, build successful SaaS products, and become rockstar consultants making a minimum of $200/hour. There are all kinds of practical steps on getting started and if you sign up now, you’ll get 50% off when it’s released. You can find it at nextlevelfreelancing.com] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net] EVAN: Hi and welcome to the Ruby Freelancer podcast. I'm your temporary host in lieu of Chuck not being here. This is Evan light and today, I got here Eric Davis. ERIC: Hey! EVAN: Jeff Schoolcraft. JEFF: What's up. EVAN: Jim Gay. [silence] Jim Gay? JIM: Yeah, I'm here. EVAN: OK. Cool. JIM: Thank you. That mute button is not working like I thought. EVAN: (laughs) Nice. And that is already in the recording. And today we are going to talk about Managing Client Expectations. So, who wants to get started? JIM: the first thing that comes to me with managing client expectations is an experience I had on a project where, we were in crunch mode right in the start of the project. It was a rescue project and it was terrible code and the project manager was agreeing to his superiors that we would get x,y and z launched by a certain and who would come and tell us the date. And that's always a recipe for disaster. And we have a new developer come on to the project. He had been there like, I think he came on Friday and we had to do work for the weekend. So he, like his first start on the project was over the weekend, Monday morning. We missed the deadline of course because things weren’t working right. And the project manager came in; we were doing our stand up meeting Monday morning and the first thing out of his mouth was, “You guys are killing me.” And it totally killed our morale. So right from the get go, we all have to put everything together and figure out, like, “Oh, how are we going to work on this person who clearly has a misunderstanding of what can be done on the project or with the development team.” So that was the challenge right from the get go for me. EVAN: In my experience,
01:30 - Dealing with unrealistic expectations 03:13 - “The Iron Triangle” Cost Performance Schedule 04:02 - Bad management 05:07 - Establishing expectations Prioritizing Schedule & Budget 08:08 - Rescue Clients & Projects 11:34 - Developers are not interchangeable 12:03 - Approaching a project 13:55 - Business owner and end user communication 16:58 - Client Communication Trade-offs Hired guns 21:47 - Amateurs vs Professionals 24:04 - Managing communication expectations 28:57 - Engagement & Evaluation of process 34:24 - Wrapping up a project 38:36 - Types of projects Clearly defined outcomes Ongoing 42:23 - Client domains 47:33 - Influencing clients and teams towards better practices 50:30 - Clients that don’t want your input
Picks Kalzumeus Blog (Eric) gfxCardStatus (Jim) The New CTO: Uncle Bob (Jim) Verizon LTE (Evan) Kalzumeus Podcast 3: Growing Consulting Practices, with Brennan Dunn (Jeff) IBM 168 | Earning Passive Income with Software, an Interview with Dane Maxwell (Jeff) Anvil for Mac (Jeff) Transcript
JIM: Are we the optimal people to talk about this? EVAN: Oh, god. How long are we going to spend figuring this out? [Are you a busy Ruby developer who wants to take their freelance business to the next level? Interested in working smarter not harder? Then check out the upcoming book “Next Level Freelancing: Developer Edition” Practical Steps to Work Less, Travel and Make More Money. It includes interviews and case studies with successful freelancers, who have made it by expanding their consultancy, develop passive income through informational products, build successful SaaS products, and become rockstar consultants making a minimum of $200/hour. There are all kinds of practical steps on getting started and if you sign up now, you’ll get 50% off when it’s released. You can find it at nextlevelfreelancing.com] [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net] EVAN: Hi and welcome to the Ruby Freelancer podcast. I'm your temporary host in lieu of Chuck not being here. This is Evan light and today, I got here Eric Davis. ERIC: Hey! EVAN: Jeff Schoolcraft. JEFF: What's up. EVAN: Jim Gay. [silence] Jim Gay? JIM: Yeah, I'm here. EVAN: OK. Cool. JIM: Thank you. That mute button is not working like I thought. EVAN: (laughs) Nice. And that is already in the recording. And today we are going to talk about Managing Client Expectations. So, who wants to get started? JIM: the first thing that comes to me with managing client expectations is an experience I had on a project where, we were in crunch mode right in the start of the project. It was a rescue project and it was terrible code and the project manager was agreeing to his superiors that we would get x,y and z launched by a certain and who would come and tell us the date. And that's always a recipe for disaster. And we have a new developer come on to the project. He had been there like, I think he came on Friday and we had to do work for the weekend. So he, like his first start on the project was over the weekend, Monday morning. We missed the deadline of course because things weren’t working right. And the project manager came in; we were doing our stand up meeting Monday morning and the first thing out of his mouth was, “You guys are killing me.” And it totally killed our morale. So right from the get go, we all have to put everything together and figure out, like, “Oh, how are we going to work on this person who clearly has a misunderstanding of what can be done on the project or with the development team.” So that was the challenge right from the get go for me. EVAN: In my experience,
No transcript available for this episode.
