I do not know if this forum is the place to post this, but...your "Web Project Management" book is amazing. I have worked in many companies where the project was completed mismanaged, and there were huge overruns in time and budget, as well as numerous bugs and forgotten specifications. I was always able to point to areas in the project approach that were wrong, but never knew quite how to develop a correct approach myself.

Your book is well written, well organised and easy to understand and implement. Thank you so much!

Ashley,

Thank you very much for the reply and link to your "1 year later" message. I agree with your findings. I would say two other things need to be added as well:

1. Contracts

I think this area is too vague and has such a huge impact on the success of projects. What you agree to do, when, for how much and what will gauge the completion of a task. As well, many people get stuck with contracts that fights proper project management: it ignores the original specs and allows the clients to push for extras. I think your book would be stronger if you had a section on this and perhaps even a sub-section written by a lawyer familiar with these types of contracts.

2. Companies (at least in NYC) NEVER want to do Stage 1 (Preproduction).

Even if it's free, companies rarely want to "waste" the time to do this most important part of a project. The saying around here is, "There's never enough money to do things right the first time around, but there's always enough money to do it right the second time around." They want the project to start, now! I'll put together a general scope, from a 2 hour conversation, and 99% of the companies feel that's enough to do a 4 month project. I bring up as many questions as I can off the top of my head to show them the open issues, but it still rarely convinces them. So what's the point of all this? I think your book needs two additions to address this:
a. How to convince companies to do stage 1 even on medium size projects

b. Plan B: What to do if a company will not do stage 1

Hope this helps! Thanks again for the great book!
On 16:14:29 1 November 2002 Ashley wrote:
>Hi Robert
>
>Thanks for your kind words. Glad the book has been of
>help. Of course I'm not going to stop you saying nice
>things in these public forums... I also find Amazon
>reviews very effective ;) (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obid-
>os/ASIN/1558606785/qid%3D996084027/sr%3D2-1/002-7088418-
>1716006)
>
>It's a while ago now that I wrote that book ('99) so I do
>wonder now and again whether I should update it. The last
>8 months I've been busy writing my second book which comes
>out this December. It's more about the management and
>evolution of existing sites rather than the A-Z of
>delivering a new site.
>
>As regards the first book, you might be interested in my
>forum post "Web Project Management" - what do I
>think 1 year on? which is at http://www.e-
>consultancy.com/forum/default.asp?v=809&p=3
>
>All the best
>
>Ashley
>
>
>On 15:48:47 1 November 2002 6tr6tr wrote:
>>I do not know if this forum is the place to post this,
>>but...your "Web Project Management" book is
>>amazing. I have worked in many companies where the
>project
>>was completed mismanaged, and there were huge overruns
>in
>>time and budget, as well as numerous bugs and
>forgotten
>>specifications. I was always able to point to areas in
>the
>>project approach that were wrong, but never knew quite
>how
>>to develop a correct approach myself.
>>
>>Your book is well written, well organised and easy to
>>understand and implement. Thank you so much!

Sorry it took so long for me to reply.

>1. Contracts are important as you say but I'm not sure how
>much I could go into detail on these. I think that Project
>Managers certainly need some expertise in contracts but
>cannot be expected to know everything - on the whole the
>contracts are better dealt with by commercial or legal
>representatives. The law is different in each country too,
>so whatever I wrote would risk not being true in another
>country.

That's definitely true, so too much detail would be misleading. However, most places I've worked we have to "wear many hats" and working on contract negotiation and creatin is a part of that job. The final contract is always done by a lawyer of course, but it is drafted first by us.

>In my experience any contract will refer to project
>documentation (typically specifications) so it these that
>the project manager must focus on getting right.
>
>I guess some general guidelines would be useful and, for
>some projects where a full blown contract isn't worth
>going into, a 'standard' contract which covers things like
>intellectual property assignments would be helpful?

That would be a huge plus for your book I think.

>2. Ah yes... clients who don't want to pay for the
>thinking/planning/specifying time. This is a real problem
>as you point out - particularly for smaller to medium size
>projects I have found. However, I think slowly this
>situation is improving - unfortunately because clients try
>it the 'quick and dirty' way and it doesn't work out so
>next time round they're more happy to spend some time
>planning things properly.
>
>Equally, as we begin to better understand the real returns
>on investment that a web site can deliver (or not, as the
>case may be), then clients and agencies are better able to
>gauge how much time it is really worth spending in
>pre-production. In some cases it is clients' realisation
>about how much damage a poor site can do that makes them
>want to plan it better second time round.

I've actually noticed this shift. I am now getting more clients who are willing and open to a fully paid, drawn out preprodcution/vision/research stage. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I cannot say enough how much easier my job is and how much more accurately a project is completed with this.

>- prototyping. This is not something I went into in the
>first book enough but the more I do the more I recognise
>the value of prototyping even if it is just on paper using
>wireframes. There are many reasons why prototyping is a
>good thing but if you include it in pre-production then it
>is also a good way of giving clients something
>‘tangible’ – they feel they are getting
>value for money when something begins to appear (usually
>site maps and page designs are when clients start to get
>excited in my experience).

I was not into doing prototypes in the past, but I'm now a HUGE fan. Prototypes really help in a few ways:
1. Clients get excited seeing something
2. they have trouble getting a hold of what you're talking about without a concrete "working" example
3. It helps direct the client in discovering what they really want
4. Lessens our structural and creative work later
5. We have something to work towards and against internally