By Brett Derricott

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For the freelance developer, project management can be one of those tough problems that almost make you wish there was someone else around to whom you could pass the buck. Cracking the project management nut however will make you both a better developer and a better freelancer. In this article we’ll discuss how breaking a project down can help you manage the job.

My company recently began releasing updates to our content management system on a weekly basis. Previously our approach was to determine which features should be included in the next release, compute a timeline appropriate for the requirements, and then get to work. Most of our timelines were at least a month long, while some approached 2 or 3 months.

Our new approach, inspired in part by the open source community’s “release early, release often” mantra, involves setting a regular release schedule (weekly in our case) and then prioritizing the features into these weekly buckets. Our goal is to deliver “business value” each week in some way. If a desired feature can’t be built in one week, we find a way to break it into smaller portions that can each be done within one week.

We also apply this approach to the websites that designers hire us to program. Breaking down projects into smaller, more-manageable increments is a discipline we’ve adopted with great benefit.

We certainly didn’t invent this approach. You’ve heard it said in other ways like “eat the elephant one bite at a time.” In the development world there are methodologies like Agile and XP that espouse similar ideas. As a freelancer looking to manage time, make customers happy, and keep motivated, the benefits of breaking a project into smaller pieces are definitely worth another look.
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By Mathias Meyer

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They say that time is money. So logically, one wants to find ways to improve their speed and make more money with their time. If this is your goal, then here you’ll find a list of what I’d recommend for the toolbox of every software-developing freelancer.

Automation

If you’ve had to do something twice, automate it. Whether it’s recreating a database, transferring new files to the web server, or just crunching a handful of data, doing it by hand twice is already once too many.

Learn a scripting language, get comfy with the automation tools your applications offer you (think snippets in TextMate or macros in Photoshop), and start using them, so that you can focus your valuable time on the important things.

Imagine your tools doing the work for you in the background while you’re sitting in the sun with a coffee, and reading everyone’s favourite freelancing site.
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By Mathias Meyer

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Marketing yourself is no doubt an important part of freelancing. There’s a lot you can do to find and approach new clients. Some of them can cost you a nice sum of money, others you can do for very little cost.

Especially for software developers, here’s seven ways to make yourself known and to turn your name into a brand.

Write A Blog. It may seem an obvious one, but many people miss out on this fantastic opportunity to make yourself known.

Writing a blog (or writing for other blogs) doesn’t have to be personal. For personal issues, write a separate blog. To promote your development skills, write about things that concern your profession, your everyday work, and the problems you run into. If you find a solution to a nasty problem, chances are other people will find it useful as well.

Of course it’s no use looking for those nasty problems. Your job is to find solutions to problems every day, be it small problems or big ones. Potential clients will hire you because they realize you’ll be able to solve their problems too.

The bottom line is to find an effective way to put these solutions into words and post it on your blog. This also has the advantage that you have a searchable archive, so if you run into these problems again you can go to your own blog.

Blogging about what you do shows you care, which is exactly what potential clients want to see.
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