Comments on: Turning Down Projects

By: John Phillips

John Phillips — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:41:35 +0000

Dominic, that’s a great idea for a next post, but will take tons of thought. It’s no easy feat to have to do that.

Sean, content development always seems to be a hurdle. I notice that many clients don’t like focusing on the content until the end, when it’s far more beneficial to have it done before you start designing. You have to know what kind of content your design for.

By: Sean S.

Sean S. — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:48:45 +0000

What we have done is identify a number of problem areas in phases throughout the project and address questions that will help us determine if these problem areas are going to be an obstacle with the potential client…

We have found that content development and the clients commitment to putting the work in on their side and how well they are prepared to tackle these issues once the project is underway are the biggest questions we need to hear the right answer to…

By: Dominic Massad

Dominic Massad — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:13:13 +0000

I couldn’t agree more with this post… The next post should be, “How to pass off the project when the client becomes problematic.” I think one of the top red flags is when the client starts changing the scope a lot. You don’t always find this out until the middle of the project and what was thought to be a cool client then becomes troublesome.

By: John Phillips

John Phillips — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:58:07 +0000

Dunrie, identifying statekholders is extremely important. Having the “design by committee” because you don’t know who makes the decisions can be a headache.

Tim, I agree, taking on someone else’s mess is definitely touchy, because you can’t really detect what went wrong to drive another developer away from the project. At at the point, since the project had already been started, a discovery meeting can be odd.

By: tim

tim — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:22:34 +0000

A recent client was in a “bad” situation with her previous developer with lawyers and all that. She wanted us to come in and clean it up. As it was a big ecommerce site we thought it had a lot of potential. A month into the project we found out we were the fifth developer in. Now it’s one of those stressful ones.

When she was talking about the developer and her legal trouble I should have been trying to hear “their” side of the story, not hers. Taking on someone’s mess is very touchy.