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952cab1f
Community Member

Should I Use A Consultant or Project Manager ?

Question: If I am technoligically illiterate should I use a consultant or project manager to assist me on my work.

 

More specifically should I hire a conultant or project manager to assist me with:

  1. Esablishing project goals and work. This would include developeing the right language to use when discussing work with freelancer(s). It would also include establishing estimated cost and timelines. 
  2. Hiring the best freelancers for the work.
  3. Managing work outcomes.
  4. Overviewing completed work; to inlude any coding and ensuring it meets professional industry standards.

I have a web application that I want to construct. However I am not very literate with respect to web technology. My greatest concern is precisley describing my expectations for the web application to the free lancer - in both its appearance and its functionalty. Every day language that is not consistent with professional web developement could waste time and money if it is not clear what is meant. 

 

As a follow-up question I feel it fair to ask if story boarding is important in conveying  functionality and design to web developers.

 

This is my first time posting to the Upwork comminity. 

6 REPLIES 6
prestonhunter
Community Member

Anthony:

This is a great question!

 

Short answer: Working with consultants and/or project managers is an excellent way to save time and money and help make your project more successful.

 

More information:

Even clients who have high levels of technical knowledge or experience will benefit from hiring consultants and project managers.

 

What if you hire five different freelancers to consult with you? What if you talk to each of them for only a half hour, asking them specific questions about how to go about handling your project? How much would that cost? Not very much.

 

Compare that to what I see too many clients do: Hire ONE freelancer without really knowing what is going on. That freelancer may be the wrong person for the job. That freelancer may set things up in a way that isn't right for your project AT ALL.

 

If you hire consultants and talk to them for just a short amount of time, you'll gain a great deal of insight about how to go about handling your project.

 

If you hire an indepenent project manager, then she will be able to keep your project on track. She will be able to help you hire and fire people.

 

The bigger and more complex your project is, the more important it is to work with a project manager.

re: "As a follow-up question I feel it fair to ask if story boarding is important in conveying functionality and design to web developers."

 

"Storyboarding" is not a technique used in the development of all websites. But it is a legitimate technique used for some websites. It really depends on the nature of your website whether something like that would be helpful.

 

It isn't unusual for storyboarding (or something essentially the same as storyboarding) to be used in developing a successful website, without ever using that precise term. But some successful websites are created without ever using anything like storyboarding, because the nature of the website doesn't require it.

Sorry for the late reply. All of the answers are excellent. Based on feedback given to me here with respect to my question, I will:

 

1. Story-board - I will create mock pictures of what I want the website to express visually and functionaly. Note: I have already started story-boarding and suprisingly I have learned a lot of my own vision for my web-application in doing so. 

 

2. Hire A Project Manager- I have no experience or knowledge on web development. In order to save time and money it is prudent to hire one. 

 

3. Undertand the process of hiring free lancers through Upwork.   

 

Thanks everyone


Anthony H wrote:

Sorry for the late reply. All of the answers are excellent. Based on feedback given to me here with respect to my question, I will:

 

1. Story-board - I will create mock pictures of what I want the website to express visually and functionaly. Note: I have already started story-boarding and suprisingly I have learned a lot of my own vision for my web-application in doing so. 

 

2. Hire A Project Manager- I have no experience or knowledge on web development. In order to save time and money it is prudent to hire one. 

 

3. Undertand the process of hiring free lancers through Upwork.   

 

Thanks everyone


Good luck Anthony!

tta192
Community Member

You definitely should hire a project manager, but first you need to talk to a business analyst, a person able to bridge the gap between you and the techical/implementation side.
They will understand your current description of the project and will ask the right questions to help you clarify all aspects, define your end goals, and make sure all relevant details are uncovered.

They'll tell you what is technically possible, what implementation options exist and within what budged. This gives you a rough image of what's ahead, and allows you to decide whether to continue or not.

You only hire the developer(s) if you choose to go ahead with the detailed analysis and implementation.

 

Ideally, you'll hire separate individuals for each of the roles above, but that's not mandatory.

florydev
Community Member

So let me start off by saying I am a huge fan of  building low-fidelity mockups or, as you called them  storyboards, in order to express the functional flow of the software you need.  Over the years, I have found this to be the best communication tool for requirements hands down.  I think the reason is simple, you and I can both read a paragraph of text and understand it entirely differently but it is very hard to look at a picture and do the same.  Look at how much information is conveyed here and imagine how many words you would need to express it completely and how many oppurtunities there are for misunderstanding:

 

Capture.PNG

I believe in storyboards so much that I try to convince all my clients to first engage me to draw up the system to be built as a mockup.  If you think about delivery than you can actually go back and look at what was visually represented in your storyboard and match that up with what you were given.

 

I have to say a big key here also is to have review meetings and talk through how the system functions so that you both understand it and can address if it is complete.

 

From there the next step I usually take is to break out the system into functional pieces and then further break it down into individual backlog items.  Typically I then estimate what I think those pieces will take and almost always organize them so that the client can get a quick working prototype, what is commonly called a Minimum Viable Product.

 

My recommendation for you on best outcomes is that someone does need to oversee the project at some level and even if you hire someone you will need to establish trust with that person before you can fully let it go (if you ever really should).  It's important to have your team work to milestones, explaining every week what they are going to do and then showing what they have done.  You have to hold them accountable if they consistently fail to deliver on what they say they are going to do.

 

Finally a very important consideration is you need to have your own source control system.  This is a system that your team would check their code changes into.  There are many free cloud based systems out there (GitHub is probably the most commonly known).  I believe you absolutely HAVE to setup an account with one of these systems and ensure that the code your team is producing is being delivered there.  I have worked with too many clients that asked me to help them but they were never given source code, I don't want this to happen to you.

 

As far as languages, I personally feel it isn't really a big deal and nearly every reasonable choice will probably work just fine.

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