Today is: Sunday, 20th May 2012
Clients Rights and Developer Responsibilities
Liability, insurance, limiting risk, and an understanding of the legal relationships we have as service providers are important areas of knowledge for web design agencies and freelancers alike. Working at the corporate level requires knowledge of these areas in order to safely navigate through projects and clients while protecting your company’s credibility, reputation, and financial stability.
When you engage with a client as a web designer you officially take part in the service economy, the fastest growing area of international commerce. You become a service provider, and the client a customer or service recipient. This relationship can be compared to a whole variety of service industries, such as a banker providing advice to a client, an IT technician fixing a computer problem, or a gardener trimming the weeds. In each of these, commonalities arise in the relationship that exists, as well as in the responsibilities of each party.
Posted under: Communication Skills
Communication in an office is extremely fast paced and often of a high volume. Emails, phone calls, voicemails, and IM’s can pile up, especially considering that many business professionals fail to use organizational tactics and prioritization. You’ve probably emailed a client at some point asking for information, only to be met with silence for quite some time.
Are they ignoring you? Don’t they know that they’re under contract? Should you email again? These could be valid concerns, but more often than not in my experience the individuals are simply very busy people who, as I mentioned, may not be the best at prioritizing and responding to the hundreds of emails which they receive.
Process Based Workflow
When you’re pumping out projects or products as part of a corporation consistency is key. Process-based workflows are used in every single step of the process from client interactions to development and launch.
Having documented process maps and workflows in place allows on-boarding of new employees to happen quickly and efficiently, employee turnover and lateral shift to be painless, and consistent delivery to take place. I can’t stress enough the importance of process and documentation, as bland as it may sound.
Understanding your Clients
If you work with medium to large corporate clients, professional experience can provide a window into their world and an understanding of their internal processes. Why does it take a month for an invoice to get paid?
What is the chain of decision-making and approvals? Many major business entities run similarly including finance departments, marketing and creative directors, and a host of other roles and responsibilities.
An understanding of how these work can aid in your interaction with business clients, you’ll see them as one fluid machine with separate working parts, rather than just an individual as the face of a company.
Project Management Roles
The application of the corporate world revolves around project management. The majority of projects have PM’s assigned to help them along and make sure that everyone involved is striking off those items on their task list. Often weekly conference calls or meetings are held to gather status reports from each individual.
Time is tracked and analyzed to discover actual vs. projected effort in order to reach maximum efficiency for the development team. The usefulness of Project Management to whip a project into shape will never be lost on me through this experience these skills are premiere in the business community, and can be carried to any industry. The following elements of project management are useful to include in all levels of web design business: