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14 Reasons Why the Website RFP Process Is Really Broken
One of the most painful roadblocks of the web ecosystem is the practice of creating and submitting RFPs (Request for Proposals). And among the leading reasons why we transitioned to WordPress retainers back in 2014 was precisely due to how broken this process is. (The other key goal was focusing on recurring revenue.) But since…
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Top Challenges When Using Slack For Managing Projects And Clients
How do you make the most out of using Slack? If you have to be available for emergencies but want to skip all the noise and offtopic going on, what would you do? The Practical Challenges of Using Slack Even with per-channel notification options and plenty of channels, it’s easy to miss an important convo.…
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Strategic Skill Development Framework for Launching a Software Engineering Career
Getting ready for your first software engineering job can be daunting. Developers are in demand, but gaining the minimum skill set for becoming competitive usually takes 2-3 years. The first job or two as an engineer could be quite challenging to land. The two most important things you need to understand first are: With that…
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Strategic Estimation Frameworks for Web Development and Digital Product Delivery
“How much does X cost?” is one of the most common (and yet complicated) questions in the software engineering industry. Estimating development projects is rarely a straightforward process, because of the broad gap between variability in solution complexity and scope variation of the same business problem, along with the external context (all 3rd parties) –…
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An Estimate Is Not a Deadline
I had a few meetings over the last few weeks that were focused on tight deadlines. Two of the clients were burned by other agencies who didn’t deliver so they were already behind schedule and wanted the projects done ASAP. Or even – much faster than ASAP. The Estimate Factor I’ve shared my thoughts on the risks…
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Why Does WordPress Fall Behind In Tech?
What I call a “Community Virus” is a fraction of a community that sets a bad example. You know, when you’re a part of the society and there’s a small (or larger) number of people doing bad stuff and are loud and annoying at the same time, and you tend to get embarrassed while shopping near them in…
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Estimation Is Arbitrary – Risk is Out There
Chris Lema posted about his approach for Estimating Without Requirements and this is one of the most brilliant posts of his that I’ve ever read. When I started my freelance career, the first thing I encountered was the estimation challenge. Working full-time at a company is often estimation-free – you can give some rough numbers in…
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Fighting the Scope Creep
Scope creep is the process of adding more and more features to a fixed-cost project at the end of the development process or during delivery. Long story short, the client expects more features, better UI, or additional services within the agreed quote, which is not expected and hasn’t been planned by the web development agency.…