Zeldman Gem of the Day

What is project management?

Client: Why can't I have that right now?

Designer: Because it's not ready.

That's project management.

Posted by Lori in work at 10:40 AM on March 26, 2007

Comments (3)

suz:

Project Management is also:

Client: Why does this cost an extra $500?

PM: Because you asked for the task to be completed in 2 days which caused 4 employees to work overtime for the last 5 days, causing an increase in costs.

Client: But I don't want to pay it

Actually the management is getting people to sign off on the $500 before you do it ;) Explaining (and having them understand) the why its not ready or why it takes more time is the toughest job on any project...

Lori:

Zeldman gave a couple awesome presentations at AEA. In this one he went on to say a lot more about relationships with clients, including:

- Make sure you're dealing with the decisionmakers -- that there isn't someone above the person you're dealing with who can come in and veto everything you've done, after it's done. (He related a story in which they ended up not getting paid for work they'd done because of this problem.)
- [in response to a question about how to extricate yourself from a bad client relationship] Make sure that it's written into the contract which payments are due from the client when, and what services will be provided by the designer/contractor/whatever in exchange for these payments. In other words, outline the deliverables as clearly as possible, and make it known that at each stage either the client or the designer/contractor/whatever can extricate themselves from the situation without owing the other party anything. I think he said that his standard contract included an up-front payment from the client for initial work.

Comments

Project Management is also:

Client: Why does this cost an extra $500?

PM: Because you asked for the task to be completed in 2 days which caused 4 employees to work overtime for the last 5 days, causing an increase in costs.

Client: But I don't want to pay it

Posted by: suz at March 26, 2007 8:55 PM

Actually the management is getting people to sign off on the $500 before you do it ;) Explaining (and having them understand) the why its not ready or why it takes more time is the toughest job on any project...

Posted by: Jesse at March 28, 2007 11:22 AM

Zeldman gave a couple awesome presentations at AEA. In this one he went on to say a lot more about relationships with clients, including:

- Make sure you're dealing with the decisionmakers -- that there isn't someone above the person you're dealing with who can come in and veto everything you've done, after it's done. (He related a story in which they ended up not getting paid for work they'd done because of this problem.)
- [in response to a question about how to extricate yourself from a bad client relationship] Make sure that it's written into the contract which payments are due from the client when, and what services will be provided by the designer/contractor/whatever in exchange for these payments. In other words, outline the deliverables as clearly as possible, and make it known that at each stage either the client or the designer/contractor/whatever can extricate themselves from the situation without owing the other party anything. I think he said that his standard contract included an up-front payment from the client for initial work.

Posted by: Lori at March 28, 2007 11:44 AM

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