Project management for a web-design firm, the ins and outs

Project management for a web-design firm, the ins and outs

Most companies understand the need of having a website. In this day and age, web design is an indispensable aspect of a company’s brand and marketing. It only follows that web design has become a necessity for a business to succeed, and so new web design firms are opening all the time. Web design focuses heavily on the client’s needs and wants, and so it is crucial that web design firms know how to manage their work taking into account their own workers as well as their clients. You need a tool for project management for a web-design business, tailored to your needs.

How should you deal with the project management side of contractual design work….

At a web design firm, most of the work is contractual and based around the design and creation of a website. As a project manager, you will have to manage these contractual demands and juggle creeping deadlines and changing requirements from clients. For the times when you are managing multiple projects, this is especially so, but even for the less stressful times when you are dedicated to a single project, there can be unforeseen difficulties in dealing with clients while on contract. One key aspect that is highlighted in contractual work is the need to track time spent doing work for a project. Using a ticket or issue tracker allows you to split out your work and track where your hours are being spent. With a calendar view, you can see at a glance across multiple projects you are working on, what your spread of commitment is like. This informs the expectations you set for clients as well as how you organize your own work. Be on top of your game with the right project management for a web-design firm.

How should you deal with the internal side of the project management: projects and contractors…

Unless you are working at a small company, chances are that your co-workers will be the ones taking on the brunt of the actual web design work—templating HTML, generating CSS, creating graphics and other assets. What goes into a web design project is a combination of talents and skills. It comes down to you to manage them all. When specifications come in from clients, you need to be able to project deadlines and look at your spread of resources. By using a Gantt chart, you can lay out the different stages of web design and pinpoint dependencies between tasks. From here, you can start looking at the availability of your resources, and assign them to specific tasks. Your team of resources may be a project-based group of people who don’t ordinarily work together, and so you must facilitate discussions and communication between them, yourself, and the client as well.

OneDesk has you covered both ways:

In the world of project management tools, there are tons of options out there. But what makes a tool right for the job? In dealing with the contractual nature of your work and project-based teams, you will need to be able to manage both the requirements from your stakeholders, as well as the team’s work. Time management will also be key as you set expectations and deadlines, and log how many hours you spend on the project. One tool that does it all is OneDesk, which not only covers your project management needs, but also product management and client support. By connecting all of these areas together, you can manage your projects holistically, from start to finish, regardless of any risks that arise.

Photo Credit: ”Fabric design” / yaskii / CC BY