When you have a project that needs to be developed, you make some meetings with the Salesman, the Developer, the Consultant, you can easily hear from them: your project is very simple, no problem, no worry, they can do your project very easily, quickly as the timeline you prefer, etc. Be careful, there're three cases: first case, they're really genius and experienced and your project is truly simply; second case, they don't understand enough and they are not experienced enough either; the last, they're trying to let you sign the contract to pay money first, your project spec is only the secondary priority on their mind at that time. Unfortunately, the first case is very rare.

I'm a Developer, a Technical Consultant, an Owner of a Development Company. I had experiences on solving the terrible/unbelievable problems from many real projects to make them succeed, experiences on solving the on going projects when the old development company/developer gave up and went away, I also had experiences on a few failed projects when I realized that it’s impossible to build. Those are the reasons I can write about this topic.

Question: How difficult to make a website/application project done?

Quick answer: It’s not difficult for the right ones, but almost impossible for the others. Let me discuss detail below:

First of all, let's review the important steps to make a website/application completed and gone live from a client idea, from his real business, from his new business idea, from a business he found and wants to copy, ...:

  1. Client meets a development team/company/developer (let assume that’s the company) to share the idea,
  2. The company discusses and consults the client about their idea, advantages, disadvantages, possible or not to develop, how to make it to support their business well, how much budget they must spend to have that website/application, ...,
  3. The company assigns a Business Analyst (BA) to get requirement, the BA discusses with Client about the idea to build the requirement document from that idea,
  4. Company assign a Designer to build the graphic design for that project,
  5. Company assign an Architect to provide solution for that project,
  6. Company assign a Development team to develop that project,
  7. Demo and get feedbacks, get changes from clients,
  8. Solve all requirement, all pieces of requirement, all pixel of display, all devices, all actions, all behaviors, all consistency, all feedbacks, all changes until client happy about the end results,
  9. Config server, good system model enough for that website/application, and put it online,
  10. Maintenance that website/application for a long time to support that client’s business,
  11. Website/application must be really useful to support Client’s business growth.

When some clients find a Development company/team/developer for a project, most of them think to only point 6, they think that they can only do point 6 and that’s enough for the project. Unfortunately, it’s totally wrong. To make a project done, we need to solve all 11 points above from 1 to 11 completely.

How to solve all those 11 points? There are two approaches: Process Oriented and Humans Oriented

  • Process Oriented Approach:
    • General idea:
      • "Process is a series of steps and decisions involved in the way work is completed"
      • This approach needs to have enough resources/skills to solve all points
      • All resources/skills can be managed by a process with a Process Manager, who can take care of all factors in that project.
      • This approach is only useful for the processed company. It should be a medium or big company, because the fee for running processes is never small, so that small company almost can’t apply.
      • The price of the project needs to be big to cover the process fee.
    • To make a project done by this approach needs:
      • A manager
      • Each skill has enough resources with enough expert, enough level
      • Working together smoothly
      • Budget can handle all fee for all resources
      • A standard process
    • Advantages:
      • For this kind of contract, the rate of done is high, because all fees are covered by the client in the contract
      • Good for the big clients, when the BOD doesn't touch directly on a project, they just assign general vision, budget and wait for the final result.
      • Good for the big development company, when every task in the company is standardized and organized. They are only working for the big client.
    • Disadvantages:
      • Required many resources that each resources can handle each part of projects,
      • Required a good manager,
      • Required good process,
      • Required much money (multiply budget, 5 times, 10 times, 20 times)
      • Alway expensive project,
      • Not good for small clients,
      • Not good for the small budget projects,
      • Not good for “no investment” start up.
  • Human Oriented approach:
    • General idea:
      • Humans can do anything, humans can build the pyramids in ancient times, humans can build many wonders when the art of process is very low.
      • Humans almost can solve any problems
      • A project is just a problem, a complex problem with many factors: requirement, solution, resources, clients, time, cost, risk, requirement changes, … and a good enough human can solve it
      • Napoleon can win the wars with his soldiers, he doesn't need the best soldiers of the world to win, he doesn’t need the strongest army to win, he trains the soldiers if he needs them stronger.
      • Google, Facebook, Windows, Linux, Apple, … actually started as a small team, small company with one or some genius humans.
    • To make a project done by this approach needs:
      • A key person who can solve the project, he can understand almost important things to finish that project, understand user requirements, can convert to technical solutions, can understand how to solve each part, and can build resources if he needs.
      • Resources with each skills, can solve task by task are ok
    • Advantages (in case you have that person to solve your project)
      • Very effective
      • Cheaper than Process Approach many times (many Times saving, not some Percentage)
      • Quickly to discuss get solution, timeline, estimate
      • After doing a few projects, we'll be very confident to do everything with him after that.
    • Disadvantages
      • Very difficult to find, to have the right person:
        • The real genius and successful ones like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs,... never do it for you.
        • The famous people are not a fit people, because there are 2 cases, first case they are the real successful ones above, second case they are the PR ones only.
        • A senior in a processed company is not a fit one either, because they’re only working in an existing process, they have no experience to solve the real problems with thousands of factors effectively together.
        • Anyone can believe himself but that’s wrong.
        • The good candidate should be the person that:
          • Enough skill
          • Enough experiences
          • Project done => he is alive
          • Project failed => he dies, bankrupt
          • He truly made many projects done before
          • He also had experience on some failed projects
          • The ratio of done/fail must be bigger than 3, 5 or 10 times.
      • How can we verify a person that can handle the project or not?
        • The fake person can always show up better than the true person. Focus on what he did, compare the consistency between what he says and what he does. Do not only hear what he says.
        • Trying from small to big, compare from what he says with what he does a few times, especially some main points.
        • Stop if he can not do as he said (a few difficult points he can't do as he said).
        • If he can, increase the size of work slowly and you will understand enough after a few difficult times he tried and succeeded.
      • Who is the person can handle the whole project only in these cases:
        • He is smart and experienced
        • He had exactly that experienced before
        • He is smart enough, not really enough experienced, but he has enough motivation to work until die to finish that project
        • He must succeed, no any other cases. If he fails, his business is bankrupt, his career is broken, his life is problems, …

When you want to make your project Succeeded, if you have much money and are willing to pay much money, you can think about a Process Oriented Approach with the Penalty Contract Terms for the case the development company can't make it done.

However if you are not having too much money to pay, please very carefully select a company or a developer to let him handle your project, most of them can tell you they can do everything you need until they go away with a chaotic result. If you choose a wrong company or developer, money is just the smallest thing you lost, your bigger loss would be the important time, the trust for your relationship, the patience, and sometimes it lets you lose your own confidence about the real right ones who can really help you.

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