Planetarion Forums

Mong · 14 Nov 2003, 11:54

Hi all out there in corporate (or at least "professional") IT hell.

I manage a small team of web/IT people who do work internally and externally.

Here in work we have some decent formal documentation for larger projects, with key dates, milestones, deliverables, specs, etc, etc. This gets signed by both parties.

However we do a lot of SME* work, also with charities and other departments. These projects can often just be a few days work, so it's really not worth having complex docs and specs.

Does anybody here have formal docs for smaller projects? What's in it? What would you put in it?

Basically I'm fed up of working on smaller projects with nothing more than a verbal contract. I've had two projects this past week that we quoted £500 each for, and each cost us over £1000 to produce. Simple economics...

P.

Add · 14 Nov 2003, 12:00

most web dev businesses now don't take contracts under 5k because they often end up taking as long as the big ones (or costing as much) for lower remunerations. if you really want to take those clients you would be best to sub contract... plenty of college/uni students on here or the www.sitepointforums.com trading post with more than enough skill willing to do it for a couple of hundred and it leaves you free ton concentrate on other sutff.

can't help you with the docs though

Mong · 14 Nov 2003, 12:55

Thanks Add.

You're no use whatsover. But thanks anyway

By our mandate, we HAVE to take these smaller jobs.

M.

NEWSBOT3 · 14 Nov 2003, 16:18

well, that depends what you are looking for.

From your description you basically agreeing a requirements specification with the customer.
From that you might wish to do some other stuff, such as

Project Plan (split this off from the requirements spec you are already doing).
Entity Relationship Modelling
Data Flow Diagrams

9there are loads more i cant remember right now)

which would help you 'visualise' the final system a bit better.

You might be better of applying a whole methodology. The problem with this ofc is the time taken to learn etc. Take a look at something like Extreme Programming, see if that would fit with what you are doing.

Structural Integrity · 14 Nov 2003, 18:17

I go with NB3 here. A simple requirements doc is the LEAST you need for doing a project, even if the customer is another department inside the company.
Data Flow diagrams can be handy to understand the system better but is usually no good for a customer. But I guess you lot can judge that better.
I'm don't know what you lot make, but don't say that making a functional/technical spec (no matter how simplistic) is lost effort for a project that small. You might be able to recycle those docs for another similar smallish project. But again, you can judge that better than me.

Only a verbal "contract" is teh bad because you have nothing you can fall back on when the customer changes his mind.

The rule of thumb we learn at school is "make those things you REALLY need, and never make something that doesn't contribute to the understanding of the final system". Not very usefull in your situation, but hey

.