
Getting to No - phsr
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/getting-to-no/
======
praptak
My absolute #1 recipe for a project disaster is a customer hell bent on
shooting themselves in the foot.

Technically incompetent, yet forcing technical decisions. The one whose motto
is "This is what I requested, but not what I need. It is your fault." No
amount of signed requirements will protect you from getting the blame.

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josefresco
"# Ask yourself if your contract is bulletproof to begin with. Be sure to work
with a lawyer... # Make sure the contract you’re negotiating has plenty of
wiggle room for revision work/iteration during the project..."

Not only do these two points contradict each other, my advice for web guys
getting into the game is to take the advice of the latter recommendation.
Small business owners hate contracts and don't want to see every detail
spelled out. They see it as a trap, and will think of you as someone who's
just looking for a reason to upcharge.

Your contracts should be just specific enough to make the client think you've
thought of most everything, and include enough wiggle room if things get
hairy, but shouldn't spell out every single little item. And stay the hell
away from your attorney when composing this, they only make it worse and of
course will charge you an assload for their work.

If your game is medium sized businesses or any corporate work, sure go ahead
and write up that bulletproof contact. That's stuff corp and enterprise love
to see so they can justify the expense to their higher ups ("look at this 20
page contact boss, it covers everything!").

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rivo
Anyone have an example for a "project questionnaire" such as the one
mentioned?

~~~
eswat
Here's a link to Happy Cog's: <http://www.happycog.com/contact/contact.zip>

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auston
>>"I have found that a “typical” website redesign effort (deﬁnition,
information architecture, design, coding), if executed thoughtfully and
thoroughly, can take at _least_ five or six months to complete..."

WHAT!? 6 Months for a website!? HOLY MOLY! I thought taking 3 weeks to get a
static site up was bad!

~~~
Maciek416
In the type of market that Happy Cog serves, promising a 3 week build
involving the "typical" parts (def/IA/design/code) is a surefire recipe for
disaster.

I think you can be pretty sure that they're not talking about 2-3 page static
web brochures. Also, keep in mind that part of their desired lifestyle is NOT
"drinking schnapps to get through the day or grinding your teeth at night",
which is the sort of thing that you get when rushing day and night to build a
full-featured system in a couple weeks.

Seriously, can you honestly point to any sites that have _not a hair_ over 21
consecutive days to build in their entirety and match the breadth of features,
design quality, testing, iterating with the customer, etc, that would be
expected of a typical Happy Cog project -- and yet somehow still have a
reasonably healthy lifestyle?

To me it sounds like a variation on the "I can build this in a weekend" HN
meme.

[EDIT]: mind you, I will agree that I've seen plenty of good systems built in
under 6 months, just not 2-3 weeks :)

~~~
auston
No, I believe I am misunderstood.

I am talking about a WEBSITE - _NOT A WEB APPLICATION_

I tried to denote this by using the words "static site". Clearly, I have
failed.

Also, for the record: I have built a few multi-page sites ( _not applications_
) in 1-2 weeks with NO all nighters (i.e. leadlogsys.com).

~~~
thaumaturgy
One of my from-hell projects that tanked -- and caused me to be nodding my
head at this article -- was a website for a company that wanted around 75
existing pages re-designed into one of five or six different templates, all
built into TextPattern, which didn't really support the two-column system that
they wanted to use.

That wasn't a web application, that was a website.

And six months would have been an accurate development timeline for it, _if it
was done right_.

~~~
auston
Perhaps - I guess I need to provide my definition of a website: No more than
10 well structured, well thought out pages.

~~~
derefr
I don't believe anyone else is using that definition. The New York Times has
what is a good example of a web _site_.

~~~
auston
Actually, I believe that is a series of small applications integrated into a
CMS...

Which would take me YEARS to build

~~~
scott_s
And I call it a website: I click on links and read stuff.

edit: Perhaps you should look at their portfolio to understand what they do,
and what their definition of "website" is: <http://www.happycog.com/design/>

~~~
auston
thanks for the work - their depth / quality of work is much different than
what I am used to (which is blogs AND sales sites for applications)

