Web Development

• There is a new breed of online video consumers: those who consume via mobile devices. Is your business utilizing HTML5 video to tap this growing marketing?
• We share more of our Internet marketing predictions on the Galvin blog. 2012 is the year to really think about how you are engaging, converting, and retaining your website visitors.
• Did you know you that by employing certain web technologies, you can create a game? Check out the reality of HTML5 Game Development and where it’s headed in 2012.
• Web developers will love this! “HTML5 Please” allows you to keep track of what parts of HTML5 and CSS3 that are supported in today’s web browsers.
• Firefox 10 was released January 30, 2012.Mozilla’s Firebug interface got a makeover, focusing on making the user experience a bit more polished. What do you think?

Project Management

• Our senior project manager, Crissy Koger, shares her experience at a restaurant. It’s not a surprise to find out that even waiters have trouble getting requirements from clients.
• Thomas Paine once said we should lead, follow, or get out of the way.Project managers are no stranger to this philosophy. Do you think followship is what makes a project manager effective?
• Project managers can ask questions all day long, but are you asking these 20 questions that should always be asked, regardless of project or organization?
• Generational awareness is another skill that project managers must learn how to master. Are able to recognize generational differences within your team?
• We admire the Veterans who have defended our country and protected our freedom, so we thought it was right on par to hear why veterans make good project managers.

Interactive Design

• Great mobile designs consider the clumsiness of our fingers and limitations of our hands. Are you designing for touch in an ergonomic way?
• Our senior interactive designer, Kiley LoCascio, shares her predictions for the responsive web in 2012by laying out the changes to the development process. Are you ready for a more agile approach to responsive design?
• Typekit released a new feature, which allows you to browse by list. List features include font organization by theme, intended use, and defining characteristics.
• A responsive website demands flexible images. Responsive images can work, but there is a better solution waiting to be discovered by designers and developers alike.

Software Engineering

• Many software developers do not fundamentally understand the nature of the SharePoint beast and what exactly it can do. Are you able to wrap your head around this application?
• Sometimes those 30-day trials aren’t worth the download. As more and more software is spit out on a daily basis, we hope that businesses keep in mind that features and functionality should be communicated to the user before they hit the ‘Download’ button.
• Salesforce released a new help-desk application this week called Desk.com, which helps you reach end users through social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.
• Performing inspections and walkthroughs reaps benefits to your software development team, such as sharing a knowledge of the code. Is it time to rethink software development, testing, and inspection?

Web Development

• How do you cope with HTML5’s dueling standards bodies while supporting web browsers that are becoming more fluid?
• The line between writing books and programs has gotten more blurry these days. Will you take advantage of the tools Amazon has released to allow you program e-books with HTML and CSS?
• Great news for mobile web developers! They can now utilize jQ.Mobi, a lightweight and faster mobile-optimized HTML5 rewrite of the JQuery Framework.
• Firefox has slipped in the web browser market, falling behind Google Chrome. Many users have their reasons for switching, but what will Firefox need to do to get back on top and regain dominance in the market?

Project Management

• How do you kill the switch on a project that is doomed? First of all, don’t declare “done!” Check out these five key strategies that will help your organization to fail fast on projects.
• Project managers should carry out a Lessons Learned meeting with the project team at the conclusion of a project to reinforce both the positive and negative experiences. What kind of questions would you ask your team?
• Project expectations and deliverables are equally important, and should be your focus of every project. Our VP of Professional Services, Tom Schaetzle, shares what it means to go above and beyond client expectations.
• Are you showing your appreciation for your project team? Positive feedback is crucial to any project team’s success. Here’s what it matters so much.
• Ten Commandments of Project Management is a great set of rules that any project manager should follow to help lead them to success.

Interactive Design

• Mobile design is about your audience’s culture, the tasks they want to complete, and the context in which they complete these tasks. Are you raising the bar for mobile standards?
• The Internet is not an interactive Postcard according to the Big Spaceship! There are stark difference between digital and print typography. What would you add to the discussion?
• Responsive design is a process that first requires you to define your break points. Here are some tips that will help to create a better workflow when designing for Smartphones, tablets, and wide-screen monitors.
• When you design a landing page, it is important to make it as visually appealing as possible. Likewise, it should be easy to navigate and error-free. Here are some other unbreakable rules to consider when designing landing pages.

Software Development

• Application developers are expected to favor the Android platform over the iOS platform within the next year. However, good news for mobile users: nearly all developers will choose to support both platforms.
• Have you ever wondered how open-source software is made? If you use the web browser Firefox, it might be easier than you think to contribute.
• Windows 8 Beta is coming out in February with the release of the Windows 8 store. Some of the store app developers speak out against the lack of proper documentation during development.
• Search engine optimization can easily be integrated in your web development process. Developer can use these 7 tips to enhance websites without the magic work of an SEO expert.
• Does America have a developer shortage? Employers are saying that they can’t find enough programmers, but could they be going about it all wrong?

If you are like me, I took this to mean that the customer wanted potatoes. When the order came up, the customer replied, “Oh, I asked for the fruit cup.” Since overhearing the original order take place, I began to think about what exactly the customer asked for because I’m in the business of gathering requirements from clients so this was all too familiar to me.

Original Requirement: “I’d like to substitute the fruit cup for the potatoes.”

Now this requirement could have been interpreted two ways:

1. Customer wants fruit instead of the potatoes.
2. Customer wants potatoes instead of fruit.

The waiter had a 50/50 chance, in this case, to get the client’s expectations correct. However, the waiter (and I) assumed incorrectly. This could have been easily corrected by just repeating back to the customer, in the waiter’s own words, what the customer wanted: “You would like to have a side of potatoes?” The customer could have corrected the waiter during this point versus having to wait until the order was delivered to only find out it was wrong.

This can happen all too often in any industry, but we experience it a lot in the software development field. You may have seen the infamous comic strip of the “tree swing”, as shown below:

There’s always a small chance for error when acquiring and understanding requirements from clients. Hey, we’re all human, right? But you can help ensure you get them 99% right just by using the following three tips:

• Repeat the request using your own words. Try not to use technical terms. Clients can have a different definition than you or may not admit they don’t know what you mean.
• Draw a picture. A picture speaks a thousand words.
• Ask the question a different way and see if you get a different answer.

Remember, you never know when the client might want fruit and you give them potatoes.

Web Development

• Want to establish an online authority? Here are 11 ways to use content to do so.
• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) publishes a draft of media accessibility requirements.
• Web developers have a lot to look forward to in 2012, like saying goodbye to IE6 support. Here are 4 other predictions.
• Foursquare’s mobile recommendation engine, Explore, hits the Internet this week.
• Did you know people spend an average of 94 minutes per day using mobile apps? Web consumption wanes as mobile app usage skyrockets.

Project Management

• Here’s a great project management tip for the week: remember to send a follow-up and offer help after a project status meeting.
• We’re half-way through the new year, but here’s 10 project management trends to watch out for in 2012.
• An effective status report should accommodate the needs of executives, the project manager, and the project team.
• Do athletes make good project managers? Here’s a look as to why this may be true.

Interactive Design

• Now is an important time for design; we can’t deny its role in the evolution of the Internet.
• Do you want to tell your client’s story? Then make web content and design impactful.
• The web community is still predicting the top web design and web development trends for 2012.
• To communicate effectively in web design, use the proximity principle.

Software Development

• Need to align people, technology, and process? Then check out this SharePoint implementation checklist.
• There are several ways to capture mobile users, including through the development of mobile-friendly sites, custom mobile sites, and native apps.
• The future of software development is ever-changing, but it might include “probabilistic” applications.
• Building secure .NET websites and web applications isn’t easy, but here are some tips and techniques to consider.
• We thought this was a great read. Ever wonder how to to get software developers to document their code? Here are few tips that might help.

Other Noteworthy Highlights

• This week, Congress felt the backlash against SOPA and PIPA, two bills that threaten the Internet economy as we know it.
• Many websites, including Wikipedia and Google, planned an blackout on Wednesday, January 18 to spread awareness to users.
• The results were stunning. More than 2.4 million Tweets were sent and Google collected 4.5 million signatures to stop SOPA and PIPA.
• As a web company, we understand the significance of these bills and plan to share our thoughts on the issue soon.

Winston Wolf, Problem Sovler.

This past weekend I found myself getting caught up watching Quinten Tarantino’s 1994 classic gangster film Pulp Fiction. Of all of the great scenes in the movie, I’ve always been most fond of the, “The Bonnie Situation.” In case you don’t recall or haven’t seen the film, The Bonnie Situation is a short part in the film in which two characters, played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta respectively, find themselves in a tight spot.

They are on the run and drive quickly to one of the character’s friend’s home. They arrive announced and park the car in the garage. The friend, played by Tarantino himself, tells them that his wife Bonnie will be home very shortly and that they have to have their problem solved and be gone before she gets home.  In search of someone to help solve the problem, a new character, played by Harvey Keitel, is introduced, Winston Wolf. Once called in, he quickly arrives and announces that, “I’m Winston Wolf, I solve problems.”

Over the course of the scene, Mr. Wolf introduces himself to the other three characters and is very careful to outline who each character is and how their role plays into the problem at hand. Along the way, he shows that he’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers and that everyone has to listen to him in order to solve the problem by the deadline. He then evaluates all the factors that play into the solution of their problem. He very quickly prioritizes what needs to change with those factors, how those changes will take place, and what is needed to make them happen. He then clearly communicates this to the other characters in the scene. Of course, at the end of the scene, Mr. Wolf and the other characters have worked through all of the steps that he has laid out and the issue is resolved right before Bonnie arrives.

When I first watched this movie while I was in high school, I never realized exactly what Mr. Wolf was in the context of this scene. Now that I’ve worked in the professional world for a number of years, I realize that Winston Wolf isn’t just a problem solver, he’s a Project Manager. Think about it, he:

• Introduces himself
• Immediately identifies all stakeholders
• Evaluates all factors of the problem at hand
• Devises a plan for solving the problem
• Clearly communicates the plan
• Procures what is needed to make the plan happen
• Puts the solution in place step by step
• And wraps everything up making sure everyone is happy and that the requirements have been met in the end

We’ve recently just started a project with a local company who has a problem with a very solid deadline, but no defined solution. In that instance, we are their Winston Wolf. We’ve come in and identified the all key stakeholders, identified the problem at hand, all factors and resources needed for a solution, and are currently in the process of working through that solution with all involved.

While I know it won’t encompass everything that Galvin Technologies has to offer, I really wish we could start introducing ourselves with, “We are Galvin Technologies. We Solve Problems.” It is so simple, but means so much.

Handing that baton off while running full speed is really a lot harder than you’d think it be. Despite how quickly it actually happens in real time, those teams have practiced it many times. The actual handoff occurs with a certain foot forward and a precise amount of time after the recipient of the baton has started moving. Most importantly, dropping the baton means losing the race!

Prior to any actual contractual agreements actually being in place for a project, it’s very likely that you’ve had several, if not many more, planning meetings with a sales-type person and probably even a pre-sales engineer. Think of this as the first lap of the race and playing the role of the baton are the project charter, initial project requirements, timelines, scopes of work, and situation specific details that could immediately affect the project.

In order for actual project, or second phase of the race, to get off on the right foot, it’s crucial that there be a clean handoff of this knowledge, or baton, to the members of the project team. How do you do this successfully? Just like a world class track and field relay team, it takes practice and an understanding of this fast, yet complex, interaction.

For our Galvin team, this occurs during the Project Kickoff meeting. If posssible, we prefer to have all key project stakeholders present. From the Galvin side, the personnel who are present are largely representative of the project scope itself. If its a database heavy application, we include our lead architect. Likewise, if we know that graphic or interactive design is a key component, we’ll include an interactive designer.

Once we’re able to get together there is a specific agenda that the meeting follows. This typically goes something like this:

1) Introduction to Roles and Responsbilities – We want to verify everyone’s role and responsbility in the project. Is there a 3rd party IT Manager who will be making DNS changes? Let’s identify and record that as a part of project foundation. Highlighting it early will avoid miscommunication later. Once again, no dropping the baton!

2) Highlight Project Objectives - This is where we’ll review the project scope of work and the Project Charter. This equates to not only what we’re setting out to do or how we’re going to, but to WHY the project has been authorized. In general, human beings work more efficiently when they understand the context in which they are working. We are at Galvin are no different. Bringing a general understanding of the project’s purpose can often generate new and creative solutions from unlikely places.

3) Project Specific Discussion Items - As a Project Manager, I always felt like this was the most important part of the kickoff meeting. This is because this is the spot where we openly discuss not only risks to the project, but how to mitigate those risks.

4) Next Steps – Very simply, where do we go from here? Next meetings, action items, etc.

At this point, we’ve succesfully handed the project off to the next runner in the race. Just like in a race, however, there are other handoffs that must occur as the project life cycle plays out. We’ll certainly cover these in later blog posts. In the meantime, just be thankful I don’t actually have any photos or videos from my high school gym class. It would be quite a sight!

Just think about how much time and money your organization puts into creating strategic and formal business plans. The meetings and the brainstorming and more meetings…all trying to account for everything, just so you can avoid surprises. We all know it only takes one bad one and the entire plan can be shot.

You might not realize it, but planning for a web site or web application is much of the same exercise. The difference is we call it ‘Discovery’ instead of Strategic or Formal Planning. Discovery has many purposes, but none so important as trying to account for as much as possible to avoid surprises later in the development cycle.

The trick is to consider what is included in that stack of paper. It’s likely a compilation project requirements, risks to the project, and most importantly, plans to mitigate those risks. Identifying both requirements and risks brings awareness of the possible issues to all project stakeholders. In this way, you not only know what you’re building, but what is out there that might trip you up, and how you’ll deal with it if or when it does happen. In short….no surprises!

Think of it this way, you wouldn’t build a house with proper plans. Show me an architect that cuts corners on your house and I’ll show you an architect without a job. If you’re serious about the project, be serious about planning. It really is that simple.

Now, what does this really mean to someone who does not necessarily manage projects every day? In short, a deliverable is any officially documented information that is critical to the end product of the project. For example, consider the screenshots of a potential new homepage design or the list of things that your organization knows that the new mobile application needs to have. A deliverable is these types of information that contain documented traits that are crucial to the end product.

Now that we’ve highlighted what a deliverable is, it’s important to understand exactly how many deliverables are available for a given project. Sometimes this can be tricky as the types of deliverables critical to a project is dependent upon the industry you are working within. Take that space shuttle that is one day bound for Mars for example, that project is so large that it’s likely to be broken down into many smaller projects…each of which might have 1000′s of deliverables.

As you might guess, producing deliverables takes time and we all understand that time is money. If you connect all of the dots, you’ll start to understand why NASA spends an average of $450 million dollars per mission….it all comes back to the number of deliverables (tangible documents that are critical to the end product) that are required to complete a project.

Luckily, it’s not likely that a web site or web application project will require 1000′s of deliverables or a 450 million dollar budget, but the analogy still works. Identifying which deliverables are crucial to your end product and, conversely which are not crucial to achieving project success within the most cost effective budget structure possible.

The process of indentifying which deliverables are included and excluded is called “tailoring” and relies heavily on experience within managing similar projects successfully. Galvin has successfully completed all kinds of projects, from complex Insurance Rating Software Packages to the simplest of websites. This helps to ensure that the deliverables produced are the right ones for your project, ultimately delivering a superior product at the lowest cost.

For more information on the concept and types of deliverables or on how to better select which ones are the right ones for your project, please give us a call. We’d love to chat more.

Here at Galvin, we’ve worked successfully with groups of every shape and size, from large and distant advertising agencies to one-man-shop copywriters. How are we able to do this? In a word – Communication. One of the first things we establish at the start of a project is the Communication Plan. In addition to containing basic contact information, it highlights who is involved in the project, their title, organization, roles, and responsibilities for the project.

Generating this deliverable only takes a few minutes and can save a great deal of frustration over the life cycle of the project. This becomes especially true on high pressure, deadline oriented projects. No more are you trying to figure out which obscure offsite IT contact has control of DNS information that you need in the 11th hour. It’s all in one place. Essential project information, agreed upon up front, and available to everyone involved within the project…for the life of the project. Simple and straightforward, it fosters an environment of open communication that often permeates all aspects of a project with the end result being a project that can be considered successful for all involved.

This simple yet essential technique has left us with many happy clients and partner organizations. That said, we’re always open to meeting with new faces and exploring new partnering possibilities. If you’re interested in knowing more about how we make partnering easy or are interested in talking more about how we might be able to work with your organization, please reach out. We’d love to talk more!

When a new project sponsor enters into a project it seems common that they have their own expectations, assumptions and initiatives that could be different from the project charter, requirements and ultimately approved scope.  Here are a few suggestions on managing a successful change in project sponsors.

• Stop the Project, Meet with the Project Sponsor – OK, you may not have the luxury of stopping the project but you should at least create a meeting to get to know the sponsor.  This seems obvious but could easily get missed.
• Review Project Status to Date – The project manager should review the project players, timeline, budget and status to date.  Give the new project sponsor a real good understanding about everything from the start to when they got involved.
• Explain the Project Requirements and Use Cases – Go over the documented requirements and the use cases of the project.
• Fill the Gaps- By now the new project sponsor should have a good understanding of the project. So this is a good opportunity for the project manager to understand any new expectations or requirements of the new project sponsor.  These should be documented and the gaps should be determined and discussed with the new project sponsor.  These gaps will most likely incur more cost and time so the project manager and the project sponsor can now openly discuss these new initiatives.
• Assume Change Order – In the project scope or project charter put an assumption in there that if the project sponsor changes the client will incur a change order.  This is considered a change in scope and  requires additional time to be placed on the project team.  But, just like everything else, you need to set this expectation upfront.

I am very grateful to our client for alerting us that there was a misunderstanding as it relates to approved scope.  This goes to show that there are still three very important things a project manager must always do – communicate, communicate, communicate.  By communicating often our client was able to have a very positive and open conversation with us about this.  If you are reading this – thank you.