PROJECT MANAGEMENT
In any relationship, strong communication is the key to success. Our working model follows it verbatim.
A solid project management tool is a prerequisite of a successful project outcome. To manage our project communication, we have been using Basecamp for a while. It simply covers 90% of the needs. Dead simple. You don’t even need Dummies 101 for basecamp. We recently started using Teamwork, its almost basecamp, infact ditto basecamp, even simpler with 10x better UI and feature rich. Our clients love it, so do we.
We setup daily or weekly meetings as needed through different communication tools.
We are also quite adept in using Jira, Pivotal, Trello and Asana. Few of our Clients like using them. And we love our Clients, so we use them too.
For general discussions and check-in’s, we use Skype, Hangout or a conference call bridge. Slack is the new workplace IRC. To talk async, we prefer it to emails.
We define product roadmap using our User Stories format. We lay out intricate details along with user stories to make it clear for dev team to build. We use the format, “As a <certain user> I want to do <X task> so that I can achieve <A, B or C goals>“.
Nothing beats the pencil and the paper when it comes to sharing sketches, and building visual prototypes. But to save time, we use Balsamiq for wireframes. To work together on those wireframes, we use the Invision App. Invision has proved to be an excellent platform for communicating design sprints along with Clients. Very collaborative.
Rest is all design and code. UI/UX and backend. Choice of tools and tech stack depends on client needs. And we educate our Clients to make right decisions. We help you make technology decisions from choosing tech stacks to integrating API’s.
For code management, we use Gitlab, Github and Bitbucket.
We are pretty Agile and for project delivery, we use SCRUM or KANBAN. But there are a lot of Myths around Agile we heard during discussions with our clients. They are often not true. We plan on covering that in detail in another thread.
What else do you want to know ?
Oh yes, to clarify, we take on the project management role, however, we expect product management is client’s responsibility. Though we help you make the right decisions but eventually the decisions need to be made by you. We present you with best possible options. You choose.