Smashing eBook_ Professional Workflow for Web Designers - Luke Reimer [7]
Loves: Articles on usability
Hates: Specific micro tasks
RISK: Designing a project requires knowledge of many major aspects and details beyond the basic project requirements – if one of these are missed, problems can surface later in the project. Secondly, appropriate time needs to be paid to this task, as rushing it will cause similar future difficulties. Lastly, this individual needs to have all of the relevant information required for the design in order for it to be a successfully tailored solution.
The Developer
Third is development, which is the programming and often graphic design aspect of the project and involves the ground work to piece the site together initially, tweak it, and then ensure a quality finished product. Frustrations within this role can include lack of information, information not provided in a timely fashion, or technical difficulties working with fixer-upper sites or inadequate servers.
Loves: Triple-monitor displays
Hates: Slow internet connections
RISK: Often programmers are excited to use the latest and greatest framework or platform in a project to make it cutting edge and exciting. While this is surely a possibility, sometimes the older, usual, or ‘clunky’ framework is the right business choice for the project and client. Modernity needs to be balanced against compatibility and solutions that have been proven to last. Secondly, a project is not complete when all of the functionality is in place – it’s complete when it’s been thoroughly tested to ensure security and completion – a step often rushed or even overlooked as the project can feel “finished” before this point.
Optional: The Project Manager
The optional fourth role is that of a project manager. As previously described above, a project manager tracks time, goals, projections, and actuals concerning the effort being put into the project with an overall goal of maximum efficiency. Often project managers do not require extensive knowledge of the technological details of the project or even the industry, as these skills are general and can be applied to almost any scenario. The primary reason that this role is optional is that they often can’t be justified financially as a paid role on a project, and administrating individuals frequently take this upon themselves, acting as dual (or triple) roles.
Loves: When things get finished on time
Hates: When people don’t show up for status report meetings
Summary and Take-Aways
Obviously these roles are not the only ones that can be used – there are many more than can be added, or some of these taken away, depending on your business model, specific project needs, and industry. These are just a few of those available that I’ve seen put into practice as divisions between responsibilities on a web project team.
Understanding the roles and team dynamics explained in this section is crucial, and can be applied in a variety of ways.
• Know what you’re good at
This can help refine your strategy when job-hunting within a similar organization, and help you to personally leverage your skills when applying them to any sort of web design project or task.
• Get a head start on teamwork
If you have little experience working as part of a team, it can be quite the upheaval. Using this rough guide, you can identify the elements of the team and figure out how to interact well with the other members.
• Maintain and refine a high-level perspective
Success in the corporate world is strongly linked to the ability to maintain a birds-eye view of teams, projects, and business models. By demonstrating your understanding of how teams and the individual members can work together to successfully complete tasks efficiently, you’ll be demonstrating professionalism and rare insight that can be identified by management.
Project Management
The application of the corporate world revolves around project management. The majority of projects have