The ten ways of Orange…for 2011
Posted by: Richard Freeman in General, Project Management No Comments »
(c) escipaul
Welcome back all, a brand new year and new blog posting – yahoodle! Okay, here goes with our ten ways of Orange.
Why?
Well, like kicking the tyres and checking that the toffees are in the car somewhere, we find it useful to remind ourselves how we do, what we do. I blogged about our general approach to our process, so this is more of an overview to the ways of Big Orange. Nope, it doesn’t related to the work of the great man himself…, it is certainly not Clockwork and won’t get you to Ibiza, but they are the words of the gospel according to Big Orange Software. Amen.
What are the ten then?
- Bring fresh ideas to everything
- Get good briefs
- Measure twice, code once
- Choose the right tool for the job
- Basecamp the world
- Go round and around then stop
- Aim for 100%
- Big clear deadlines
- Eye for the detail
- Review after the launch party
- Turn the world orange
- Launch an airline
1. Bring fresh ideas to everything
Our strapline is ‘Fresh ideas for the digital age…’ – okay, we decided we needed one, we did some **thinking** over some tea and came up with that one. We do quite like orange so the fresh part seemed to make sense but over the last few months looking back, I think we generally do try and fulfill that. There have been two situations recently where we have been invited in to companies to chat through some initial digital project ideas, mobile, web, social and so on. Both times the people we have been talking too have been really pleased with our ideas, “…instead of just suggesting blowing a large pot of cash on PPC Google ads!”. Which is nice. Living the strapline.
2. Get good briefs
What makes a project go well, is similar to a good meal in lots of different ways. You need lovely ingredients, hand nurtured, Fair Trade, locally grown, preferably cooked by Hugh Fern-Whit. However, the recipe is the most important thing after that. Good briefs on a project are the same for the digital world. They have to be right, contain all the information about what the project and the customer wants to achieve. Not reams of paper, but honest goals and objectives. With the odd chart.
3. Measure twice, code once
My father in law has taught me many things. Mostly, about looking after his daughter and the right way to carve a turkey. Another one of his good ones is about carpentry. He always says, “…measure twice, cut once…” as you cannot stick wood together. Terribly easily anyway. It is the same with our code. We make sure we chat, drink tea, draw things, plan and write it all down before we code anything as it saves confusion and poor products at the end of it. In the digital world it is too easy to think that you can just repeat or undo without thinking of the time implications on a project.
4. Choose the right tool for the job
Carrying on the tool analogy, it is always worth choosing the right tool, technology or software for the job when planning the first stages of a project. Sometimes, you might need to wireframe. Sometimes, you might be better creating a prototype. Sometimes, you might actually need to meet people and do some more talking before you can get to either of those. Whatever the project is, match the tools to the job as one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to projects.
5. Basecamp the world.
Les cartes est sur la table. Nous aimons le Basecamp. We just do. Our customers love checking and seeing what the latest is on a project. Our designers and developers can post up files or messages for comment. Everybody we give it to just seems to pick it up and run with it. It is cloud hosted so is available everywhere pretty much everywhere and all the time. It just works and we love it.
6. Go round and around then stop
To make sure things are clear for everyone and that we are not running around after our tails, we have some clear rounds of amends for our projects. Once we have delivered the first version of anything, there are two rounds of amends. An amend is a batch of feedback really, if that helps. As long as customers chug through all the parts that you send them, in one great hit, this does work very well. We can fix these as project milestones so that everyone knows where we are. It isn’t on the moon. It’s happy projectland (TM).
7. Aim for 100%
There is a great story about errors in manufacturing, an urban myth I am sure but this time, no aliens and no autopsy. The story goes that in an American car factory, cars start rolling off the line with one wheel that falls off, as they are driven to the other side of the plant. “Darn!” says the foreman and lets the line carry on chugging out shonky cars while he tries to see where the fault lies. All the while the shoddy three-wheelers are piling up, ready to be fixed once the fault is found. In a similar factory in Japan, the foreman has the same problem. “Aiiiiiiiii!” he exclaims and stops the line immediately to go and find the fault there and then, fix it, before any other shoddy cars fall off the line with three wheels. We love Japan and we always aim for 100% working. Correct. As described. Less errors, everyone happy, no pile of three wheelers.
8. Big clear deadlines
Over the years we have found it is much more efficient to work in blocks on projects. To do that, you need to work with everything you need, all the fonts, images, files, content and so on. Customers also like to know when things are going on so they can get their organisation ready and also track the progress of the project. How did we help with this? Well, we just keep to 5 or 6 steps for a project and don’t move from one to the other unless it is complete. Then, everyone is clear when we are doing what and makes sure they can either help by providing **pretty pictures** to us, or really good advice. It definitely helps.
9. Eye for the detail
Projects can sometimes seem like marathons stretched out over many months. Everyone gets fatigue towards the end and wonders if things are ever going to launch. What you do have to make sure at that point though is that you still have an eye for detail, what was the link for their Facebook page that needs to go into the footer? Are those really the right images to use? Is the Google Analytics account really that one to go into the footer? We don’t just trust our eyes though, we also have a very nice checklist to run through to remind us. There is a devil in the detail. He is called Cecil and we hunt him down religiously.
10. Review…after the launch party
For every project we do, it is nice to celebrate the launch. Caaaaaaaaaaake! After the sugar rush has subsided however, we always meet up with customer over some vitamin shakes and chat through the project. What went well, what didn’t go well and what can we do better our the three most important questions. Three is a magic number.
What’s next?
Over the next month or so, I was going to blog a little about **the process that Dares not speak its name** namely, testing. In a few different forms and with some nice, fancy but free tools. Nice. Yep, that met my test script – yahooodle!
