There are dozens of frameworks and methodologies that are used in design work. There are no more people who would not hear about agile, scrum, kanban and other approaches. Each of them promised to become a silver bullet, which will help to carry out projects so that they meet all the parameters of success. But in practice, only competent work with risks allows you to bring projects to the end at all costs.In this article we will try to consider the most important risks that may get in your way. The material will be useful to everyone involved in the design work.
So which projects are considered successful? It is customary to highlight the following parameters:- the project was delivered on time;
- without exceeding the budget;
- with a minimum number of defects;
- works as intended;
- people use it;
- solves the goals that were set before him;
- - ;
- .
So what, in fact, how often do the completed projects meet all these points?With a small difference in the estimates of the studies from the Standish Group, Project Management Institute, Gartner, Wellingtone and other respectable organizations , we are told that one third of projects in IT turn out to be failures, and half are experiencing difficulties. Just think, these are stunning statistics.It is difficult to say what level of projects participated in the samples, but let's assume that these are large stories like the failed modernization of the IT infrastructure of the KMart chain of stores for $ 1.2 billion, which has become one of the key factors in the bankruptcy of the company.Does this mean that smaller projects that make Russian web studios are not subject to the same problems? If you read customer reviews on the popular aggregator, we will see that even in the case of typical landing pages and template online stores, the above criteria for success are rarely met:“We ordered the development and design of the site in 2015. Design done quickly, but not to say that quality. The development was introduced until the year 2017 and never implemented ”
“The site after such work had to be completely redone, at first of course the work went actively and it seemed that everything was fine. But then they began to notice that we were repeating the same task for a month, as a result, we almost stopped answering questions. As a result, it turned out in a huge minus, because I had to hire another supplier ”
“Several times they postponed the terms of the site implementation by additional agreements. As a result, all the agreed deadlines were also disrupted and the development of the site took 1.5 years. The output was a crude product that cannot be used. I had to give the site for revision to another studio ”
What can we say about individual, more extensive development? After all, the larger the project, the more chance it has of not surviving to completion. Therefore, any customer and contractor should have a question - how not to get to the cemetery of unfinished projects.Let's figure out what could go wrong in a custom development project, and what to do about it:Risk 1. Inadequate qualifications of contractors
The problem here is how custom development works. The client often does not understand who the project trusts, because on every corner they promise a full development cycle and turnkey work.Having decided to digitize part of the business, the company turns to a web studio (aka digital agency / web integrator). Service takes place in a single window format. The client is asked to fill out a brief, on the basis of which TK is then compiled. If the project is complex and requires experienced programmers, then the development is outsourced to production.The subcontractor is required to carry out work on the ToR, which was compiled by incompetent people. If a project survives to release, it often turns out that the product does not solve the company's tasks, no one wants to use it.
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No matter how trivial, the most important thing is to understand the problem. We do not spare resources for immersion in the customer’s business. We are ready to organize a business trip and communicate on the spot not only with stakeholders, but also with people who will use the final product. We will not start spending the project budget until we are convinced that we figured it out.TK’s web studio consists of analysts who worked as testers yesterday. Not understanding the intricacies of development, they create a document that describes the elements of the interface, but at the same time practically ignores the complex integrations and algorithms that are hidden behind these elements.
A real example of formulations on the basis of which the general contractor requires calculating the final development cost.
The general contractor asks to calculate the cost of development using an example of similar in format, but completely differently implemented services. “Make it there, we'll figure it out”When it comes to automating an enterprise, this approach is incorrect. It is not enough to draw layouts and describe them in the TOR. Therefore, it is better to entrust the stage of analytics to system architects who understand what is hiding “under the hood”.Risk 2. Budget Exhaustion Before Product Launch
The digital services market is dominated by fixed budgets and postpay. Therefore, accounts and sales are more likely to agree on an estimate and conclude an agreement. If the web studio incorrectly drew up the terms of reference, conducted an incomplete scoping, and drew subcontractors for development, the production hell could happen on the project.The volume of work will be greater, the general contractor will begin to protect their interests and push through the final performers so that they fit into the budget. On both sides, perverted logic works, each comes up with an excuse to do a little worse than the opponent: “Have you provided poor TK, and now they increase the volume? Then we will not take into account some of the comments! ” / “We have already promised the client where they will go, finish or don’t get the money!”.These political wars are hidden from the eyes of the client. He does not know about who is involved in the project, and how the development process goes - the web studio partners signed the NDA. As a result, production sacrifices the quality of the product so as not to work at a loss, and the web studio only thinks about how to sign the acts and receive payment as soon as possible. No one cares about the benefits to the client.Avoidance method
When making estimates, web studios are limited only to the general stages of work: analytics, design, layout, programming. While a competent contractor will include in the estimate all the functional elements of the developed system.On the basis of a five-minute conversation with a client, it is impossible to assess the scope of work on the digital transformation of a business. Therefore, working with the estimate itself requires several stages, and without analytics it will not be possible to get the final development cost.We offer doubting customers to calculate the cost of the project according to our detail. So far, none of the competitors have agreed, although there have been studios that promised to make cheaper.But even with the elaborated technical specifications and estimates, the project is not protected from imbalance in the production schedule. As soon as such a threat arises, it is important not only to warn the client, but also to propose an alternative plan of action and optimization of the scope of work. You can’t keep silent and hope that "maybe it will blow over."Risk 3. Changes in the middle of the project
Projects for the development of digital systems last an average of at least a year. Anything can happen during this time.It may happen that in the middle of the project the client has changed the way of doing business, or more advanced technologies have appeared, or maybe something has just changed in the world.For example, they developed a courier delivery system, but due to the political situation, the market changed, large aggregators reduced their commissions, and the project no longer solves the goals that were set for it. In such circumstances, it is absolutely normal if the client begins to change tasks without waiting for the completion of development. You need to be able to work with this.Avoidance method
If the client offers to change something, then first of all you need to figure out why this is and what circumstances led to this decision. Bring the client into a frank conversation to understand his pain.Only after that, assess whether these changes will benefit the project, and try to anticipate the attendant risks, including exceeding the budget. Next, find the best approach to implement these changes in the product and offer it. But the choice should remain with the client.Risk 4. Loss of interest on the part of the owner
When something changes in the world, the client may be carried away by another line of business, and forget about the current project. Loss of interest leads to the fact that the performer is either asked to completely curtail the work, or, worse, left in limbo. Waiting for a decision leads to downtime and costs.But more often, interest disappears when serious changes in the organizational structure take place on the client side, people change on the project. As a rule, these people do not own the full context, and therefore, do not see the value of the project. Their motivation to bring the product to release is extremely low.Avoidance method
In order to constantly maintain interest in the project, we show the client all the intermediate results. Large projects usually consist of a set of services, therefore, as a result of each iteration of development, we strive to demonstrate the completely ready-made functionality of a separate service that can already be used. So the client sees that the product solves his business problems.During development, we check to see if the goals of the project have changed, and we regularly consult with them. We conduct additional analytics and collect feedback from the target audience. We involve customer representatives in the development process and support the assessment of project prospects in an up-to-date state.Risk 5. The customer does not allocate time to participate in the project.
Employees on the client side do not give the necessary information, the manager slowly responds and everything slows down. At the same time, we know for sure that the client needs the project, interest has not been lost, the deadlines are still expedient.Unfortunately, this happens often. In this case, an inexperienced executor will begin to be offended, lower the priorities of the client’s tasks, and ultimately switch the entire development team to another project. The performer’s logic is clear here, no one wants a team downtime due to unreasonably long approvals. This results in a broken customer relationship. The project is not being completed.Avoidance method
We personally agree with the client on the definition of responsible persons. We discuss their status and degree of responsibility. We fix their functions and responsibilities in the work schedule.As soon as we notice that the responsible persons have encountered some restrictions, together with the client we are looking for a solution on how to eliminate these obstacles and continue the development process. If the appointed people do not fully comply with the agreement, we suggest appointing other employees in their place.Risk 6. Prolonged adjustments / improvements
The client is not always competent enough to assess the degree of readiness of the project. This is normal. It is much worse when the contractor does not understand whether the project is ready. Commissioning is often delayed due to unreasonable changes. This leads to the fact that both parties lose time and money.The situation is often related to the fact that edits are offered by people who are not responsible for the final result. If you do not take care of fixing the responsible persons in advance, then comments will come from unskilled people who have an incomplete context. It happens that they are connected at a late stage, and therefore they do not know anything about the limitations and goals of the project.An inexperienced contractor will either endlessly dispute these edits so as not to make them at his own expense or, on the contrary, take absolutely all comments into account. All this adversely affects the achievement of the initial objectives of the project.Avoidance method
If the comments come from a person who is not responsible, then we fix them and discuss them with those who are directly responsible for the project. Before making any edits, we try to understand how these changes will help the overall goals of the project. If the edits do not help, but only interfere, we express our concerns.In the event that the owner of the product asks for changes, we warn that this will delay the launch. We offer a competent solution to optimize the scope of work, taking into account new introductory ones. Together with the client we find out what will happen if we release the product in the form that it is. When there are no clear negative consequences, we suggest postponing edits to subsequent stages. Moreover, the choice always remains with the client.Risk 7. Unavailability of infrastructure for launch
The fact that the client’s infrastructure is not ready, the legal nuances are not drawn up, and there are no partnership agreements can impede the launch of the project into operation.For example, the system is designed to work on SSDs, and the current infrastructure uses HDD, or the business is launching a new direction, but it has not yet received permission from the government department.The contractor sometimes continues to work in such a situation, ignoring problems on the client side. Because he is comfortable not to go beyond his area of responsibility. Formally, the contractor does the right thing, the problem is on the customer side. But what is the use of a product that will be impossible to launch, what benefits will it bring?Avoidance method
Before starting work, we discuss with the customer the resources necessary to launch the project. We give recommendations on which people to hire and what equipment to buy. If the project is non-standard, please consult with lawyers and make sure that there will be no problems on the part of the legislation upon launch.At the stage of TK formation, we check the opportunities for integration and other technical aspects of the final product operability.Conclusion
All risks are somehow interconnected. One problem that has not been fixed in time can cause a snowball effect.But experience shows that there are three universal ways to prevent and minimize the consequences of risks:- Fixing potential risks;
- Action plan to avoid them;
- Willingness to change course and search for alternative solutions.
Thinking correctly is not about projects, but about customers. Constantly communicate and work with customer expectations. Do not hide anything and help to see the fullness of the situation.Behind each described risk are real cases from Work Solutions experience. These were not always stories with a happy ending; some of them cost the company millions of rubles.But all the forces that we put in to build trusting partnerships with customers often pay off, albeit not quickly.Due to transparency in relations, we have clients with whom we have been working for more than six years, and for which we have unloaded tens of thousands of business hours. For such a long time of cooperation, various risks arose before the project, but we always tried to inform them in time and propose ways to solve them. Therefore, we believe that competent risk management ensures the completion of projects.In the comments, I suggest sharing stories from your experience when projects were not completed. Was any of the 7 risks that we described responsible for this? Or was the reason something else?