Just one: launching an online startup without attracting investments and a team
I still can not explain where the awareness of the need to start a business comes from. No matter who you work, no matter how much you get, you are never protected from this - a feeling that starts sharpening you from the inside, preventing you from sleeping at night: “Why have you not done your own?” It's not about the money. Several of my acquaintances, whose phone numbers almost coincided with their monthly salaries, suddenly came to the conclusion that, having worked “for an uncle”, they had not yet achieved anything.
The desire to open your own business slumbers until you notice a vacant niche. It so happened that for a number of reasons I was indirectly immersed in the field of linguistic translations. I worked on them myself as a side job, I knew well how the work of the translation bureau was arranged, I knew how the professional translator thinks, and - most importantly - what the client is dissatisfied with, who in the established system sometimes do not pay enough attention. In other words, I had more reasons for launching a startup than even Igor Nikolayev .
A little less than a year ago, I decided to act. According to my knowledge, financial and technical capabilities, I, it seems to me, did not stand out from the multitude of people obsessed with such an idea. I don’t stand out even now, with the exception of what I tried - my AnyLanguage project, which allows you to quickly and accurately receive a translation of any type, is already running for translators and will soon be available to clients. Nevertheless, considering myself not deprived of intelligence and intuition, I managed to visibly replenish my personal collection of pitfalls with new exhibits, some of which I want to share with you.
')
CHOOSING A WEB STUDIO AND SIGNING A CONTRACT
Almost in any startup you need a website or a mobile application. It's great if you have a technical specialist who will become part of the team and take on these tasks. If it is not there, it does not mean that it is necessary to look for it urgently - as I noticed, people join the project more willingly when they already have something to show, and those whom you found at the idea stage can easily come off. Therefore, at first, I decided to replace such a specialist with money, having paid for the web studio site. Having at least a prototype of the site, it will be easier to find a specialist in your startup team.
The choice of a web studio and the question “How much does a website cost?” Deserves a separate article, if not research. I’ll just give you some tips from any artist search experience for AnyLanguage .
Make a detailed statement of work and call as many web studios as possible.
I knew that the more my TZ was compiled, the fewer questions would arise when it was implemented and the more accurate the price would be. I informally, but described in great detail all the necessary AnyLanguage functionality, selected more than 50 web studios and knocked on 30 of them with this TK. This helped to understand the real picture of the market and find out the current technological trends.
Look not at the price, but at who puts it
Amazingly, the variation in prices was on the order. And here it is important to understand who is among those who responded yesterday's schoolboy, who is an enthusiast dumping for the portfolio, who is a professional, and who is a well-fed professional who can afford to work on personal terms. The easiest thing for me was to find out by talking at least 15 minutes on the phone.
Forget those who are into the popular CMS
I met studios that offered development based on Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla and other CMS. I immediately refused. If the functionality of these platforms is enough to satisfy your needs, you will most likely be able to use them yourself with minimal help. To do this, they were written - now it is possible to make a business card site, a blog, a forum and even a social network or an online store in half an hour. But most likely you need what is listed in the price lists as “custom”. There are no ready-made solutions for this.
Forget those who are clever
We live in the open source age - no one ever creates a website from scratch. The job of a web developer is to competently combine relevant technologies, so you should work with people who openly admit it. Skip those who say they have their own unique web platform - at best, this is someone else's framework, modified so that it is no longer compatible with official updates and contains security holes. At worst - just a lie. Avoid also those who, with pathos, give web development some particular importance. This is nothing more than a craft. Look for honest artisans.
It is better to work with a legal entity
If they figured out how to keep accounts, then the brain and patience on the website they have enough.
Price alone does not guarantee service quality.
I selected those who seemed to me a professional: he spoke calmly, answered thoughtfully, without launching a record with advertising text. Those who treated their work with the understanding that this is just an ordinary service that must be performed qualitatively. In the "short list" came 6 web studios. They were united by a lot - for example, in the portfolio there were high-quality works, which, nevertheless, in their functionality did not always intersect with my task. However, all differed in one thing: in price. There were those who asked for a third less than the highest price in the shortlist. And also those who requested half as much. Who would you choose?
I reasoned like this: they are all black to me. Everyone seems to be a professional of the same level, so with each of them I am equally risking. What is the price of risk? The cost of the service and, worse, lost time with the breakdown of the period that could be spent on development. Alas, the second is never known in advance, and the first was clearly spelled out in the contract. I decided to take the path of least risk.
Here you need to respond to the seemingly reasonable comments that all my problems are solely due to stinginess, they say, if I chose a team that asked for more money, all the troubles would have been avoided. It is a pity, but I still do not think so. Services web studio is not a product in the store, which can be rotated, compared with its neighbors and appreciate the difference in weight, size and build quality. How many conditional kilograms of a website do you get for a large amount? And how much for half? Alas, as much. I asked the question of the most “cheap” web studio from my short list in the forehead - why are you asking twice less than your competitors? The answer “because we don’t spend money on renting an office, but programmers are not from Moscow and work remotely,” I was completely satisfied with my reason.
Well, the choice was made, and after the final meeting we agreed to sign an agreement. Looking back, I understand that before concluding an agreement with them, I would be very happy to stumble on the network for a number of tips. Some of these:
You hire workers, not friends
Quite a private mistake of the customer - the desire to become friends with the performer. The same happens with the performer - at the first meeting the manager of the web-studio began cheerfully “Hi! What is your project? ” I knew that it wouldn't add productivity, so I politely stayed on "you." The same coolness should be adhered to in other matters.
Artist is not interested in your startup
When I met with the web studio managers, I explained that I wanted to do it, how it should work and, most importantly, why I wanted to do it. Why need AnyLanguage ? Because in the 21st century, people deserve comfort in the matter of translation. We can quickly receive almost any goods to the house, so why not get a notarized translation to the house? Why do we need a bunch of intermediaries in the form of a translation agency in the 21st century? Only your desire to change the state of things and inner confidence in the idea help to move the project and not to go crazy with no days off and personal life.
Make no mistake, the performer from your story will only remember that you need a website. Qualitative. Like everyone else. Do not expect someone to catch on your idea. The one who made the Wright brothers to order the frame for the first plane made just the frame cross, and not the first plane. Watching the implementation be prepared for the most incredible violations of your concept, the reason for which is simple: everyone does not care.
Doubt often when drawing up a contract
Vctarze: I made a huge mistake in assuming that the web studio can make websites. But you should think differently. Understand, you choose the person / team on whom the implementation of your idea depends. What if they fail? The question is not rhetorical. A responsibility. The higher it is, the less chance of failure to meet deadlines. In my case, the web studio’s fine for late payment was ... 50 rubles a day, but not more than 50,000 rubles in total - the amount that would have accumulated in 2 and a half years of delay. How did I make such a hole in the contract? It's very simple: I thought that the web-studio can make websites, and let it be a week or two overdue, but they’ll make the site for me, so I left only one lever for control - phased payment of work.
Do not repeat my mistake - be able to "include shit" and suspect the worst. Programmers may not be able to program, realtors may not be able to sell apartments, the president may not be able to manage the country. For all this should be spelled out weighty responsibility in the contract. Remember that the contract is invented primarily in order to identify potential critical situations. If the contractor is confident that he will cope with the work, there should be no objection to the condition for the return of all money paid in case of failure of the phased deadlines. Use it.
So. The contract was concluded. A week after that, I had a perfectly prepared TZ, which I never had to correct, and the work plan, according to which we moved exactly an hour to an hour to the finish. Coordination design passed like clockwork. After 2 months, I received not only a perfectly designed website for mobile platforms and old versions of Internet Explorer, but also a rich admin panel and a thoroughly tested ordering and payment mechanism.
No matter how!
How to understand that it is time to uncover the micromanagement?
The rather clever-looking word “micromanagement” in a very polite way hides behind itself the hell of any employee. This is a form of project management, which involves frequent checking of an intermediate result by the chief in the spirit of “Well, how, is it ready? And now? And now? Well, is it ready now? ”Or interfering with work in the spirit of“ No, well, this is no good - move this striped here, see, it became immediately better ”. Micromanagement, which was common in western companies 50 years ago, is today considered an extremely unproductive practice. In short, such an approach does not allow the boss to concentrate on higher-level tasks, and his subordinates discover their talent in independent work and learn how to think, and not follow a rigid dictation. Micromanagement often leads to nerves and inefficiency - you might have heard the opinion that “the head has to do the work of the entire department”. This approach is almost never justified, and the objective need for its use means only one thing: careless employees must be dismissed and recruited new ones.
Simply put, micromanagement is crap. And, therefore, suits the most shitty situations. In one of these, I got involved. Let me crystallize this experience into a set of conclusions that I made for myself.
When detailing the terms, evaluate not what you were told, but what you forgot to say.
We agreed that the work will be completed within 4 months. When I asked for a plan to be accurate to a week, at first glance I received quite realistic deadlines. One thing was embarrassing: in the functional section, there was not enough “Integration with Yandex.Cash” columns — the key mechanism by which users could pay for translations. To my question “What time is this?” I received the answer “Well, we will screw it up later”. "Screw" stretched for six weeks. The rather important function of counting the number of characters in the document for translation was treated just as superficially, "Well, we think that a week is enough." If the performer "thinks", "fastens", "throws", etc. - most likely, he does not fully appreciate the complexity of the task. Therefore, boldly multiply the term named by him by the number Pi - this not only sounds like something mathematically proven, but for some reason is always closer to reality than the words of the performer.
Do not flatter yourself the first success
In my case, everything really began cheerfully. I received a technical task quite tolerably and almost without omission, and then one by one the page layouts began to fall on me, and I only had time to confirm them. The site was due on December 9, and nothing foreshadowed trouble. In addition to the name of the country in which everything happened - Russia. This is the only way to explain what happened next. Namely - nothing. A whole month of juicy rich nothing. Alas, it was at this moment that I changed the main work and spent at the new place, sometimes up to 14 hours a day - I did not have the ability to control the implementation, and besides, I was relaxed at a good pace at the beginning.
Why is this happening? Of course, this is primarily due to the incompetence of the heads of web studios. They are so focused on receiving new orders that they forget or are too lazy to explore possible pitfalls and discuss them with applied specialists. In Russia, the culture of management is bad, so you can assume that the project’s boss (if we are talking about non-TOP-10 web studios with sky-high prices) is most likely not. Consequently, there is no team, but there is just a set of specialists. Therefore, giving them your project under the knife, you risk several times: first you rely on the designer, then on the programmer, somewhere in between - on the administrator and the tester. If there is no effective control on top of them, your risk is multiplied by the number of such people: they may be slow in their work, they may ignore it, they may have other priorities.
If you are not a developer, it does not mean that you can not control the development
Cascade development model, in which a tangible result appeared at the end of the term, long in the past. The modern cycle implies the availability of a product to a certain degree of readiness almost throughout its entire length. If you are not able to demonstrate the raw version in the middle of the term, then, most likely, no one has yet begun work. If you are shown a raw version, do not hesitate to test it. A professional does not markup the main page with a thought “later correct”, because he understands that it is more expensive to go back to the stage, the details of which are forgotten. If something appears in the raw version, it is likely to remain final. Therefore, you need to test as soon as possible.
I asked a question - how do I report bugs found? "By email". Forget it. Forget the notepad (in the sense of a text editor) or, even worse, the notepad (in the sense of paper). If you are not offered a convenient error tracking system, suggest it yourself. I used BugHerd to protect the project from confusion in the spirit of “Have we not yet eliminated it?”. BugHerd is a very easy bug tracker where you need to fill only one field to create a bug. This automatically makes a screenshot of the area around the error element and the record of your web client - the developer receives comprehensive information. For 3 months my tracker has been replenished with more than 700 bugs - could such a thing get along in the mail or notepad?
Watch out for lies - the more of it, the sooner your intervention will be required.
When I wanted to look at the intermediate result, the developers came down with an unknown disease - all together and simultaneously. Breakdowns of household appliances followed server failures, on one day money ran out on an account with an Internet provider, and in others “we were away”. Finally, the main programmer was taken to the hospital. Surprisingly, at the same time, I watched the joyful message on the studio's facebook page: “we passed the site such and such”, “just see what site we just made”, etc.
I was reassured that there was nothing wrong with this and they strongly denied the existence of the problem. The last straw was the fact that in the middle of November they promised me that, despite force majeure, the work would be completed just in time - by December 9th. Well, you know, they don't even lie on TV.
How to understand that you are in the midst of a crisis
If you want to hit in the face of the project manager - inhale and exhale three times. If the desire does not pass, then the moment has come. He is clearly not doing his job, and you are angry at being powerless to influence it. A week before putting the work, but I don’t even know if there are any programmers in nature who are busy with my site. All that I have is design layouts, at the very least a flattened main page without much functionality and a plan of work on the whole project, more like instructions on how to draw an owl. At that moment I stopped myself from shouting and threats - it is obvious that there is nothing to threaten me with such a treaty, but you can also shout at yourself. There was only one thing - to replace the manager. Myself.
How to use micromanagement
You can persistently (and fairly) ask the question - why should a person who has just paid the money to manage everything on a turnkey basis need to manage developers? : . : - «» -- : , . - : «, , ». , – .
, ( Skype) 3 . , , . .
.
, , , - . – , : «! , 2 ». , , , - , , , « », , , . ,
, , , . , , , , .
, , . , , .
, , . – , - . – , , .
, , : , , . , , , . , , « ?».
– .
, , , . . , , , - – . Minimal Viable Product (MVP) – ? ? 3- , MVP. , .
, – «» . , . . - – . : «! . » – . , .
,
: . , , , , . , , : «, , . , ». I confirm with my experience.
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The desire to open your own business slumbers until you notice a vacant niche. It so happened that for a number of reasons I was indirectly immersed in the field of linguistic translations. I worked on them myself as a side job, I knew well how the work of the translation bureau was arranged, I knew how the professional translator thinks, and - most importantly - what the client is dissatisfied with, who in the established system sometimes do not pay enough attention. In other words, I had more reasons for launching a startup than even Igor Nikolayev .
A little less than a year ago, I decided to act. According to my knowledge, financial and technical capabilities, I, it seems to me, did not stand out from the multitude of people obsessed with such an idea. I don’t stand out even now, with the exception of what I tried - my AnyLanguage project, which allows you to quickly and accurately receive a translation of any type, is already running for translators and will soon be available to clients. Nevertheless, considering myself not deprived of intelligence and intuition, I managed to visibly replenish my personal collection of pitfalls with new exhibits, some of which I want to share with you.
')
CHOOSING A WEB STUDIO AND SIGNING A CONTRACT
Almost in any startup you need a website or a mobile application. It's great if you have a technical specialist who will become part of the team and take on these tasks. If it is not there, it does not mean that it is necessary to look for it urgently - as I noticed, people join the project more willingly when they already have something to show, and those whom you found at the idea stage can easily come off. Therefore, at first, I decided to replace such a specialist with money, having paid for the web studio site. Having at least a prototype of the site, it will be easier to find a specialist in your startup team.
The choice of a web studio and the question “How much does a website cost?” Deserves a separate article, if not research. I’ll just give you some tips from any artist search experience for AnyLanguage .
Make a detailed statement of work and call as many web studios as possible.
I knew that the more my TZ was compiled, the fewer questions would arise when it was implemented and the more accurate the price would be. I informally, but described in great detail all the necessary AnyLanguage functionality, selected more than 50 web studios and knocked on 30 of them with this TK. This helped to understand the real picture of the market and find out the current technological trends.
Look not at the price, but at who puts it
Amazingly, the variation in prices was on the order. And here it is important to understand who is among those who responded yesterday's schoolboy, who is an enthusiast dumping for the portfolio, who is a professional, and who is a well-fed professional who can afford to work on personal terms. The easiest thing for me was to find out by talking at least 15 minutes on the phone.
Forget those who are into the popular CMS
I met studios that offered development based on Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla and other CMS. I immediately refused. If the functionality of these platforms is enough to satisfy your needs, you will most likely be able to use them yourself with minimal help. To do this, they were written - now it is possible to make a business card site, a blog, a forum and even a social network or an online store in half an hour. But most likely you need what is listed in the price lists as “custom”. There are no ready-made solutions for this.
Forget those who are clever
We live in the open source age - no one ever creates a website from scratch. The job of a web developer is to competently combine relevant technologies, so you should work with people who openly admit it. Skip those who say they have their own unique web platform - at best, this is someone else's framework, modified so that it is no longer compatible with official updates and contains security holes. At worst - just a lie. Avoid also those who, with pathos, give web development some particular importance. This is nothing more than a craft. Look for honest artisans.
It is better to work with a legal entity
If they figured out how to keep accounts, then the brain and patience on the website they have enough.
Price alone does not guarantee service quality.
I selected those who seemed to me a professional: he spoke calmly, answered thoughtfully, without launching a record with advertising text. Those who treated their work with the understanding that this is just an ordinary service that must be performed qualitatively. In the "short list" came 6 web studios. They were united by a lot - for example, in the portfolio there were high-quality works, which, nevertheless, in their functionality did not always intersect with my task. However, all differed in one thing: in price. There were those who asked for a third less than the highest price in the shortlist. And also those who requested half as much. Who would you choose?
I reasoned like this: they are all black to me. Everyone seems to be a professional of the same level, so with each of them I am equally risking. What is the price of risk? The cost of the service and, worse, lost time with the breakdown of the period that could be spent on development. Alas, the second is never known in advance, and the first was clearly spelled out in the contract. I decided to take the path of least risk.
Here you need to respond to the seemingly reasonable comments that all my problems are solely due to stinginess, they say, if I chose a team that asked for more money, all the troubles would have been avoided. It is a pity, but I still do not think so. Services web studio is not a product in the store, which can be rotated, compared with its neighbors and appreciate the difference in weight, size and build quality. How many conditional kilograms of a website do you get for a large amount? And how much for half? Alas, as much. I asked the question of the most “cheap” web studio from my short list in the forehead - why are you asking twice less than your competitors? The answer “because we don’t spend money on renting an office, but programmers are not from Moscow and work remotely,” I was completely satisfied with my reason.
Well, the choice was made, and after the final meeting we agreed to sign an agreement. Looking back, I understand that before concluding an agreement with them, I would be very happy to stumble on the network for a number of tips. Some of these:
You hire workers, not friends
Quite a private mistake of the customer - the desire to become friends with the performer. The same happens with the performer - at the first meeting the manager of the web-studio began cheerfully “Hi! What is your project? ” I knew that it wouldn't add productivity, so I politely stayed on "you." The same coolness should be adhered to in other matters.
Artist is not interested in your startup
When I met with the web studio managers, I explained that I wanted to do it, how it should work and, most importantly, why I wanted to do it. Why need AnyLanguage ? Because in the 21st century, people deserve comfort in the matter of translation. We can quickly receive almost any goods to the house, so why not get a notarized translation to the house? Why do we need a bunch of intermediaries in the form of a translation agency in the 21st century? Only your desire to change the state of things and inner confidence in the idea help to move the project and not to go crazy with no days off and personal life.
Make no mistake, the performer from your story will only remember that you need a website. Qualitative. Like everyone else. Do not expect someone to catch on your idea. The one who made the Wright brothers to order the frame for the first plane made just the frame cross, and not the first plane. Watching the implementation be prepared for the most incredible violations of your concept, the reason for which is simple: everyone does not care.
Doubt often when drawing up a contract
Vctarze: I made a huge mistake in assuming that the web studio can make websites. But you should think differently. Understand, you choose the person / team on whom the implementation of your idea depends. What if they fail? The question is not rhetorical. A responsibility. The higher it is, the less chance of failure to meet deadlines. In my case, the web studio’s fine for late payment was ... 50 rubles a day, but not more than 50,000 rubles in total - the amount that would have accumulated in 2 and a half years of delay. How did I make such a hole in the contract? It's very simple: I thought that the web-studio can make websites, and let it be a week or two overdue, but they’ll make the site for me, so I left only one lever for control - phased payment of work.
Do not repeat my mistake - be able to "include shit" and suspect the worst. Programmers may not be able to program, realtors may not be able to sell apartments, the president may not be able to manage the country. For all this should be spelled out weighty responsibility in the contract. Remember that the contract is invented primarily in order to identify potential critical situations. If the contractor is confident that he will cope with the work, there should be no objection to the condition for the return of all money paid in case of failure of the phased deadlines. Use it.
So. The contract was concluded. A week after that, I had a perfectly prepared TZ, which I never had to correct, and the work plan, according to which we moved exactly an hour to an hour to the finish. Coordination design passed like clockwork. After 2 months, I received not only a perfectly designed website for mobile platforms and old versions of Internet Explorer, but also a rich admin panel and a thoroughly tested ordering and payment mechanism.
No matter how!
How to understand that it is time to uncover the micromanagement?
The rather clever-looking word “micromanagement” in a very polite way hides behind itself the hell of any employee. This is a form of project management, which involves frequent checking of an intermediate result by the chief in the spirit of “Well, how, is it ready? And now? And now? Well, is it ready now? ”Or interfering with work in the spirit of“ No, well, this is no good - move this striped here, see, it became immediately better ”. Micromanagement, which was common in western companies 50 years ago, is today considered an extremely unproductive practice. In short, such an approach does not allow the boss to concentrate on higher-level tasks, and his subordinates discover their talent in independent work and learn how to think, and not follow a rigid dictation. Micromanagement often leads to nerves and inefficiency - you might have heard the opinion that “the head has to do the work of the entire department”. This approach is almost never justified, and the objective need for its use means only one thing: careless employees must be dismissed and recruited new ones.
Simply put, micromanagement is crap. And, therefore, suits the most shitty situations. In one of these, I got involved. Let me crystallize this experience into a set of conclusions that I made for myself.
When detailing the terms, evaluate not what you were told, but what you forgot to say.
We agreed that the work will be completed within 4 months. When I asked for a plan to be accurate to a week, at first glance I received quite realistic deadlines. One thing was embarrassing: in the functional section, there was not enough “Integration with Yandex.Cash” columns — the key mechanism by which users could pay for translations. To my question “What time is this?” I received the answer “Well, we will screw it up later”. "Screw" stretched for six weeks. The rather important function of counting the number of characters in the document for translation was treated just as superficially, "Well, we think that a week is enough." If the performer "thinks", "fastens", "throws", etc. - most likely, he does not fully appreciate the complexity of the task. Therefore, boldly multiply the term named by him by the number Pi - this not only sounds like something mathematically proven, but for some reason is always closer to reality than the words of the performer.
Do not flatter yourself the first success
In my case, everything really began cheerfully. I received a technical task quite tolerably and almost without omission, and then one by one the page layouts began to fall on me, and I only had time to confirm them. The site was due on December 9, and nothing foreshadowed trouble. In addition to the name of the country in which everything happened - Russia. This is the only way to explain what happened next. Namely - nothing. A whole month of juicy rich nothing. Alas, it was at this moment that I changed the main work and spent at the new place, sometimes up to 14 hours a day - I did not have the ability to control the implementation, and besides, I was relaxed at a good pace at the beginning.
Why is this happening? Of course, this is primarily due to the incompetence of the heads of web studios. They are so focused on receiving new orders that they forget or are too lazy to explore possible pitfalls and discuss them with applied specialists. In Russia, the culture of management is bad, so you can assume that the project’s boss (if we are talking about non-TOP-10 web studios with sky-high prices) is most likely not. Consequently, there is no team, but there is just a set of specialists. Therefore, giving them your project under the knife, you risk several times: first you rely on the designer, then on the programmer, somewhere in between - on the administrator and the tester. If there is no effective control on top of them, your risk is multiplied by the number of such people: they may be slow in their work, they may ignore it, they may have other priorities.
If you are not a developer, it does not mean that you can not control the development
Cascade development model, in which a tangible result appeared at the end of the term, long in the past. The modern cycle implies the availability of a product to a certain degree of readiness almost throughout its entire length. If you are not able to demonstrate the raw version in the middle of the term, then, most likely, no one has yet begun work. If you are shown a raw version, do not hesitate to test it. A professional does not markup the main page with a thought “later correct”, because he understands that it is more expensive to go back to the stage, the details of which are forgotten. If something appears in the raw version, it is likely to remain final. Therefore, you need to test as soon as possible.
I asked a question - how do I report bugs found? "By email". Forget it. Forget the notepad (in the sense of a text editor) or, even worse, the notepad (in the sense of paper). If you are not offered a convenient error tracking system, suggest it yourself. I used BugHerd to protect the project from confusion in the spirit of “Have we not yet eliminated it?”. BugHerd is a very easy bug tracker where you need to fill only one field to create a bug. This automatically makes a screenshot of the area around the error element and the record of your web client - the developer receives comprehensive information. For 3 months my tracker has been replenished with more than 700 bugs - could such a thing get along in the mail or notepad?
Watch out for lies - the more of it, the sooner your intervention will be required.
When I wanted to look at the intermediate result, the developers came down with an unknown disease - all together and simultaneously. Breakdowns of household appliances followed server failures, on one day money ran out on an account with an Internet provider, and in others “we were away”. Finally, the main programmer was taken to the hospital. Surprisingly, at the same time, I watched the joyful message on the studio's facebook page: “we passed the site such and such”, “just see what site we just made”, etc.
I was reassured that there was nothing wrong with this and they strongly denied the existence of the problem. The last straw was the fact that in the middle of November they promised me that, despite force majeure, the work would be completed just in time - by December 9th. Well, you know, they don't even lie on TV.
How to understand that you are in the midst of a crisis
If you want to hit in the face of the project manager - inhale and exhale three times. If the desire does not pass, then the moment has come. He is clearly not doing his job, and you are angry at being powerless to influence it. A week before putting the work, but I don’t even know if there are any programmers in nature who are busy with my site. All that I have is design layouts, at the very least a flattened main page without much functionality and a plan of work on the whole project, more like instructions on how to draw an owl. At that moment I stopped myself from shouting and threats - it is obvious that there is nothing to threaten me with such a treaty, but you can also shout at yourself. There was only one thing - to replace the manager. Myself.
How to use micromanagement
You can persistently (and fairly) ask the question - why should a person who has just paid the money to manage everything on a turnkey basis need to manage developers? : . : - «» -- : , . - : «, , ». , – .
, ( Skype) 3 . , , . .
.
, , , - . – , : «! , 2 ». , , , - , , , « », , , . ,
, , , . , , , , .
, , . , , .
, , . – , - . – , , .
, , : , , . , , , . , , « ?».
– .
, , , . . , , , - – . Minimal Viable Product (MVP) – ? ? 3- , MVP. , .
, – «» . , . . - – . : «! . » – . , .
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/289904/
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