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Creating an efficient project management process, such as Leo’s Guide to Simple Project Management, provides the framework for freelance designers to deliver on time and make a profit. However, the biggest challenge for a designer is efficiently managing client feedback and communication. Profit margins are quickly eroded when clients drip-feed design feedback intermittently or request monster changes towards the completion of a project.

Without a very trusting working relationship these issues are difficult to manage once they occur. The best solution? Avoid them in the first place.

Rewrite the Brief

When clients are involved from the beginning of the design process changes will be minimized later. Client involvement requires more than communicating acceptance of a brief and providing regular status updates. The client needs to provide input into the design. The challenge for a designer is to maintain the position of the design director without becoming a design monkey following instruction, and this challenge is best overcome by restating the brief on your own terms. Continue Reading

Dear Aunty Entity

I’m project managing a large project for a client who, although are the nicest bunch of people, are so disorganised that sometimes I can wait three months for payment. Although I have steady work and not a lot of time to spare for other clients, two minute noodles more than 5 times a week is getting to be beyond a joke.

What can I do to get paid on time?

Cassy Stoner

Dear Cassy

Not getting paid on time is unfortunately one of the biggest problems freelancers face. Being the norm doesn’t make it right but instead of feeling powerless there are some things you can try to make sure your invoice stays in the front of the queue. Continue Reading

Like so many sudden deaths, it came under perfectly normal circumstances: I submitted a humor column to a website I’ve been publishing with for years. It went live in short order. And within forty eight hours, my prior understanding of how we interact online was dead, dead, dead.

Just as psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler Ross suggested it might, the violent death marched me through five stages of grief. Some lasted longer than others. Some required more drinking than others. But at some point, most freelancers who publish online for the general public troop through them. May you have loved ones and plenty of ice cream around you. Continue Reading

Dear Aunty Entity,
I recently inherited a multi stakeholder project where one of the key production team is in another country. Do you have any tips for working with offsite teams and in different timezones?
Signed, Harried

Dear Harried,
Ooooh. The catch-all term; ‘outsource’. Back in the days when every blue chip happily farmed out the more technical aspects of a job and customer service centers to a country where the workers are awake at odd hours, seemed more qualified than their boss and cost less per day than co-workers spent on lunchtime burgers and beer it was a dream come true. Then, after a honeymoon period some disgruntled rumblings appeared and grew to a very loud crescendo of anti-outsource sentiment…. “More errors were being introduced which cost more time and money to fix than phase 1″ and: “I want to talk about gardening and football, not which type of buffalo skin is best with chilli jam ….”, it all went a bit quiet… I think you have the picture.

Outsourcing can benefit your project. You can save money, have an entire team dedicated to a project which frees up your own team and of course there’s the lure of international travel. But as with everything, you have to make allowances.

For instance you might want to take the following into consideration:
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Dear Aunty Entity
How often should I keep in touch with my client, can you have too much contact and and how close is too close?
Signed, Touchy Feely

Dear Touchy,
There is no right or wrong amount of contact for a client – it really depends on the project, your technique, their personality and the day of the week. Some clients like to be contacted every day even for a quick ‘hello’ – some don’t want to know you unless there is something important to discuss. By rule of thumb, more is better. That daily email update or phone chat maintains the human level of contact and helps build a relationship if you are new. If you feel comfortable around a client to discuss and raise issues, then you are more likely to be able to work through any project problems that may arise. When you start working with a new client (and in a freelancer’s case, the client’s client), you both need to take time to get a feel for how you work/prefer to work. As a PM, you should be prepared to alter your working practices to suit a client’s needs for example: a daily update rather than a weekly one, or phone briefings rather than a document.
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Dear Aunty Entity,
Someone once asked you how to make the switch into project management – well how do you do this if you are doing something different and any tips for making the switch?
Signed, Dormant Headspace

Dear Dormant,
Making a career switch is always going to raise questions from prospective employers. They want to know why you want to switch and importantly, what relevant skills you bring to the table to enable you to do the job you aspire to do.

First up, be clear about why you want to change, where you see this taking you and what you bring to the table for a future employer. Also be realistic in your expectations, making a career change generally means that you will have to start from a lower level from where you may have been previously.
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Dear Aunty Entity,
How can a freelance project manager make themselves indispensable to their new employers?
Signed, Daria

Dear Daria,
Let’s get one thing clear. No-one but no-one is indispensable in a workplace unless you own the company and even then you can be taken over, edged out or just plain fired if it’s big enough….

Freelance project managers are usually hired on a temporary project by project basis – when the project is over, so is your contract. To ensure you stay in their memory and get asked back, ask yourself the following:

• Are you comfortable with doing what has been asked of you?
• Are you generally fun to be around?
• Do you look like you belong there?
• Are you available when required?

…and probably most importantly:
Continue Reading

Dear Aunty Entity,
Does anyone ever use MS project to produce project schedules?
Signed, Phil McCracken

Dear Mr Crack,
Aaah yessss, the project fantasy charts. Impressive to unfurl across a boardroom table, a glorious sight in Xerox’s finest technicolour, some of them deserving of the Booker prize for best new fiction… just make sure you have them the right side up, that’s a dear. If produced at the beginning of the project and left as is for the remainder, they are as useful as the proverbial tits on a bull.

MS Project is listed on many job ads as a desirable or even a ‘must-have’ but consider this: Many corporate clients do not have a copy of MS project.
Continue Reading

Dear Aunty Entity,
I’m currently working as a programmer. How do I become a project manager? I’m sure I can do it because everyone tells me what a good manager I am and all the project managers seem to do around here is swan around drinking coffee and having long lunches. How can I make the switch?
Signed, Code Freak

Dear Mr Freak,
A promoter told me once, back in my heady club days of the early 90s and after a couple of weeks of hanging round the DJ booth, that I’d be perfect as a nightclub gogo dancer. I thought I was sex on legs for weeks until I found out the club they wanted to hire me for was an over 60s drag act at a sportsbar in the suburbs….

There’s this myth perpetuated in some development garages (oh yes, you know who you are – you can bet your GAP fleecy jumpers), who think that a PM’s only required skill is to be able to talk to people. Yes this might be true especially if they also happen to be extremely good looking. However, in most cases a project manager’s life is essentially about making sure every team member has the tools to do their job and can function effectively. This means that a project manager needs to understand the role of each member, what their skills sets are and how best to use them to deliver a project. They also need to be able to keep the team working together in an effective manner. Not all that easy when you consider an online project may include a designer, an HTML developer, database developer, copywriter and programmer… then there is the hosting nightmare and we haven’t even gotten to the client’s quirky little nuances yet…..
Continue Reading

Dear Aunty Entity,
My clients think I’m very expensive and query every invoice I send them but I’m still only earning enough money to pay the rent and have very little left over for anything else. How can I charge a fair rate for my services?
Signed, Dire Straights esq

Dear Mr Straights,
I’ll freely admit that back in the days when you could charge the equivalent of the GDP of Tanzania, the chairman’s first born and a small mountain of Bolivian marching powder for a 10 page brochure website, the average freelancer was a lot more well clad and fed.

These days, the bottom line is on service, the product and on top of all that, the client has the nerve to ask for return on investment‚ or ROI in the exulted circles – bangs per buck for the rest of us. It helps to know what other people are charging for the same services. Some people post rates on their websites, others offer a quoting service. You might want to phone around a few agencies and get a quote.
Continue Reading

Dear Aunty Entity,
I have a client who keeps moving the deadline to a week earlier. This has happened two times in the last month and there were mistakes in the end products that we didn’t have time to fix. Now I have an unhappy client who is accusing us of being unprofessional. I’ve tried everything – even expensive lunches don’t work. Help!
Signed, Confused.com

Dear Confused,
It’s a fact of life that rushed deadlines compromise quality of work and ultimately the client’s business. If you haven’t already, draw up a project plan to be agreed by the client before the project begins. Project plans list tasks to be completed by the project team and the client. If you make it clear that some tasks need to be completed or approved before the next can begin this should go some way towards giving you a break and educating him about the project life cycle. It should also be made clear before the project begins that bringing the date forward/removing tasks from the project plan will impact on the project.
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The PM guru, Aunty Entity

In just about every team meeting, along with the creatives, the developers and the client, there is usually someone with the title: project manager. For the uninitiated this could range from the multiple-pierced, student office temp to a Prada-clad scare-meister who is rumoured to sleep upside down in a coffin. For those of us who are in the know (ie: have been making tea and booking cabs for a while), project managers are generally the ones who get it all delivered in the end.

But what do Project Managers do?

Have you ever surfed those job ad listings for freelance project managers wondering if you qualify or what those ‘key requirements’ actually mean? Below are some expansions on those must-have items:

Before you start: PM = Project Manager. In some circles, it also stands for Prime Minister or Pre-menstrual tension – go figure.

Organisational skills: A PM is supposed to essentially be more organised than the people you work with. The range can extend from: uses the trash can as a filing system to having every email/phone message ever received from anyone including their mother, printed, time-stamped and filed accordingly. First impressions count so getting to the interview on the correct date is a good start. Knowing why you are there is also a bonus.

Technical skills: Usually a requirement for the digital arena. However, it should be noted that in some organisations, being able to tie your own shoelaces to get to work is considered a technical skill.
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