Carlos Mario Mejia - Online Resume & Blog

How to Effectively Communicate to a Developer and have a Successful Product Launch

mario — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:31:19 +0000

So you have a great website idea or the next killer app and everything works in your head. You want to communicate to your chosen developer to get your project going or just to get a quote. The developer gives you an estimated of costs and time. You start the project and everything is going as planned. Then problems that were never taken into consideration start to arise, new requirements, changes on the functionality, etc., you then realize that the project needs more time to be fully functional since the requirements had changed. End result, your project costs more and the expected deadline is moved for a later date.

As a developer I’ve seen this happening many times, sometimes is the developer’s fault for not understanding the requirements due to lack of documentation, but most of the time is the client’s fault for not communicating effectively his ideas (sic).

If you are a client the most important obstacle to overcome is the language barrier. See, developers use different language, the technical language! We all pride ourselves of being receptive when it comes to talk to the client to gather information but that is not always true. Therefore you need to talk to the developer on his own terms but that doesn’t mean you have to be technical as well, that means only that you have to give him the information as detailed as you can. Yes I know this is boring but if you are serious to your business you probably already noticed the advantages of doing like is supposed to be done.

Since the above is all clear not I’m going to practice what I preach, and that is… guess what… be as detailed as possible! In the following lines I’m going to tell you the most important points you need to fulfill before and while talking to a developer. They are not in any specific order so just read on:

Put everything on paper.

Yeah, this is important! When you put things on paper even if you have everything mapped out in your head you will see that things appear even more clear to you. Most of the time this will help you realize of features that are redundant, features that are missing, new information needed, important images ommited, etc. If you are a little technical don’t limit yourself, use videos, power point, flash, etc.

Do a reality check

Look at your paper and ask yourself questions for each feature, page, etc: Is this really needed? Is this really worth to have? What would a user like to see on my website? Put those things on the side and remember to ask your developer what he thinks about it but don’t put them on the initial requirements, if you feel that they are important somehow just put them as secondary features.

Ask someone you trust to check your ideas

Show your documentation, power point, etc., to someone you trust, this person could be your partner, your spouse, your best friend. Ask this person if he likes what he sees, if he finds it easy to navigate, what changes would he make. Is always good practice to have another pair of eyes to check your work

Remember that you are the one “who knows”

Many times I’ve been asked if I have experience on a specific industry and, while this is important in some cases, I don’t consider this as a definitive factor to choose a developer. Developers take care of the code and even if they really want to do it, is almost impossible to know everything about your industry or every single line of business. Got it? You really have to explain things in detail; do not save efforts when communicating your ideas. You can also consider to give your developer a basic background of your industry so he has the time to prepare questions for you and possibly make recommendations.

Create Goals

Know your project and establish down to earth short and long term goals. For this you have to split the project in different phases like for example:

Database development
Website design implementation
Website registration
Connection to Web Services
etc.

If you do that your expected end results will be easier to track, the project will stay within budget and will also save you a lot of headaches.

Think ahead of the game

Not being a technical person is still not an excuse not to get involved in your project. You shoud know as most as you can about technical processes, limitations, etc. The more you know the better you will be able to translate your plans to your developer. I’m not saying you have to go to school and get a degree, the only thing you gotta do is read, investigate and keep reading, after all you are investing an important sum into this so let’s do it the right way. Go online and use Google to find what you are looking for; Wikipedia is also a great resource if you look at the related links at the bottom of the pages, specialized forums are great if you can find them, Yahoo answers is just awesome, etc.

If your budget is limited, mention it

Go straight to the point and tell your developer what is the budget assigned to this project, if the budget is limited or you just don’t want to pass a specific amount; if the developer is really a pro he will tell you if all the work needed can be done with that amount or if you have to get ready to spend more. Sometimes is a good idea to split the project if budget is a concern; try to work with your developer and see if he can make recommendations to build it up to a certain point where you can still get some profit, or if is not for business, to take it to the point that at least is usable.

Get your own estimate of the work to be done

Again, you don’t have to get a degree in programming to do this, start with the basics counting the pages that you want developed. What for? Well, this is specifically to get a better estimate. If you tell your developer “These are the designs and I want 15 pages of this and 10 of this other” you will save him potentially hours and in the worst of the cases “days!” before he figures out how much work has to be done and give you an estimate.

Get to know your developer strengths and weaknesses

This is very important as it will help you save money. I pride myself of being a one-stop solution for any web project, I can do almost anything web related. But the reality is that I have my weaknesses like everyone else, I know this is a disappointment for some of you but yes, I’m a human too ;).
A developer is a guy who creates code; I’ve yet to meet the first developer who is as good designing than coding. If you choose one of this guys ask him what he feels comfortable working with and if he says that he is not very proficient on a specific field like for example Flash animations, just be thankful that he was honest. That means that your project will not be delayed if you let him just do the coding and give the flash part to someone else.

That’s it, I think those are the essential points that you have to make sure you cover before and while communicating to a developer and have a successful product launch. I created the above list to give them as reference to my new clients and I would like to share it with you, hoping it will be as useful to you as it has been to me.

Something extra: I created a little cartoon with the help of the wonderful Project Cartoon site, to illustrate how a Project really works (form a developer’s point of view); I hope you find it entertaining as well:

How Projects Really Work (v 2.0)

*extra: Product Design

This applies to apps some static websites. As a professional who’s specialized in startups I can’t stress enough the fact that unless you are a well versed IT professional you need a Software/Technology Architect to design your product. Short story: a client contacted me to work with his team adding a few new features to his web app; his requirements were comunicated very poorly like “I want XXX functionality and I want you to build it”; I don’t mind receiving requests like that because as a professional I’m use to do what is best for my client, but not every developer will do it. I started checking the code to see what will be the best way to plug in my code and I noticed that their code was a big mess, the developers didn’t build a good fundation to grow this site; they were literally throwing code to make it work how the client wanted but none of the developers told the client that what they were doing will only work up to a certain point. Who’s to blame? I think both, the developers for not telling the client what the application really needed and the client for not hiring a professional to architect his app. The end result was that after spending 2 months in development they ended up rewritting the whole thing based on my recommendations. By doing this they added around 2 months more of development but they are getting a rock solid product that will server their needs.

Most developers will do whatever is easier for them and when you have a poorly designed product they can potentially make you waste time and money. The bad thing with developers is that you don’t know what they are doing until it is too late, to avoid that you should hire a professional to design your product. This is the person who will recommend best practices, recommend new technologies, define how the application should work and in general put together all documentation (roadmap) that will tell the developers how to build your project in the right way.

Facebook Like-Send button plugin for WordPress

mario — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:09:05 +0000

Here is my first open source plugin for WordPress. This is a rewrite from another plugin that I found somewhere on the internet, I forgot the name of the author but will include it once I find out.

The “Send” button was just introduced yesterday by Facebook, is not functional yet but it will very soon as said by Facebook. It includes a handy administration page that you can find on the left hand side menu of your WordPress admin page titled “FB Send-Like”.

Please use the following link to download the initial version and post here if you need support for this plugin.

LINK: ***You need to be a registered user to see this link***. Register now!!

lamoonrestaurantmiami.com

mario — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 03:26:33 +0000

The famous La Moon Restaurant from the Man vs. Food show with Adam Richman.

Visit their website at www.lamoonrestaurantmiami.com

ideaengineers.sapient.com

mario — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 03:19:52 +0000

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This job was done as part of a development team at Sapient Corporation. There was other people involved in this project from other departments from developers, designers, IT techs, managers, etc., and I take no representation that the entire work was done by me. My role in this project was Interactive developer using technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML and others to complete this job for the client.