managing mixed role teams and delivering an awesome product
TRANSCRIPT
Managing Mixed Role Teams and Delivering an Awesome ProductBy Alex Berman User Experience Team Lead, Rubenstein Technology Group
Start
Finish
Setting the Scene
Our client, a world class design firm, wanted a new website and CMS to match their new company direction
Client/Designer are the same agency
Setting Expectations
●Complicated Design = Lots of Development Time
●Simple Designs Can Mean Lots of Development Time
●Most things CAN be done - if the team is able to invest the time. Hence balance is key.
●An Awesome Product/Project May not be Perfect
Old Stuff
●Regular Collaborators
●High Expectations Based off Regular Collaboration
New Stuff
●CMS
●Site Copy
●Images
●Breakpoints
●File Types
●Team
The Team
1.2 PMs
2.4 Designers
3.3 Developers
4.1 QA Tester
5.5 Partners
Step 1: ToolsGoogle Sheets Smartsheet/Harvest
Google Chrome/Mozilla/IE 9+ 2 iPads (Air 2 +iPad 3)
3 iPhones (iPhone 5, 6, 6+) Wiki
Google Analytics/Tag Manager Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Acrobat
Step 2: Schedule
1.Smartsheet
2.Google Calendar
3.Email
4.Weekly In-Person Reviews and Feedback
5.Agreed Upon Delivery Date
Step 3: Vocabulary
1.Review Designs
2.Review Terminology
3.Agree on a set of descriptive terms for site components
Step 4: Assets1.~ 30 PSDs
2.5 InVision Files
3.3 PDFs
4.HTML/CSS
5.Javascript
6.Node.JS
7.Perl
Education
●CMS Tutorials
●Integration Tutorials
Challenges
●Vocabulary
●Process
●Timelines
●Requirements
●Saying “No” vs. “Yes”
What Worked●Excellent inter-team communication
●Clear chain of command
●Mutual respect
●Common goal
●Intense Collaboration
●Training + Training Videos
What Didn’t Work
●Timelines
●Feedback Loop + Feedback Timing
●Feedback Expectations
Takeaways
●Collaborate
●Communicate
●Educate
●Set Clear Expectations
●Say “No”
●Say “Yes”
Final Grade: A-Pro:
●Delivered Beautiful FE Website + BE
●Happy Client === Happy Life
●Continued Working Relationship w/ Client
Con:
●Unspoken expectations complicated final part of project
