Project Process

Depending on the type of project in question, it can take a number of different processes and sometimes one that’s cobbled between the methods, to suit.

When appropriate, we create a Pivotal Tracker project so that we can share our progress on the project with everyone. (Use the Project Tracker link associated with each project to follow its progress and participate.)

While some of our project process has a set path and more finite period, much of our work is iterative. That is, we’ll work on the project for some period, and then set it aside for a while (working on others), and then return to iterate on it again.

Design

Design processes often start with a discussion and maybe a meeting or two, move through the creation of a design as an image file and its review, and conclude with the build out of the design and a final review.

These projects often don’t have a public phase until the design is released, unless that’s a major consideration of the project. Design projects can become other project segments upon conclusion.

Applications

As our applications are most often developed as software-as-a-service, we follow agile project development methods as far as we are able, despite our small team of three in which individual skill sets are not fully equivalent to be interchangeable.

In general, we build a list of tasks in our Pivotal Tracker iceboxes, and as we turn our attention to an application for a week or more in a burst, we tick off the issues one-by-one. Then, as we watch how the upgraded application performs, we turn our attention to another ongoing project in the same fashion.

Content

Depending on size, content projects often begin with an email and through a meeting or two, proceed to a temporary conclusion, in that all content must be refreshed over time. While we only list our major projects, this process extends to most content issues as well, with the exception that a meeting is often not necessary. While content projects are never really done, for us, we can usually hand the majority of the long-term maintenance off to an owner/editor, except for the core site pages.

Training

Training is always ongoing. In the past, we held office hours, but are now moving to a classroom format for higher-end training and continue to do individual in-person training to get you started (beyond our LiveWhale FAQ and tutorial). We do a number of these training sessions in conjunction with IT Client Services.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is always ongoing. It takes the form of emergent needs when we experience server or systems failures, but also requires a consistent touch to update systems, maintain and document code. And we regularly work to stay with updates, for performance and security reasons.

Consulting

Consulting projects are often initiated by division, department or office that need help evaluating a series of vendor projects to meet their defined need. These projects often begin with an email, hopefully in the earlier stages of the identification of a need.

Once begun, they proceed on an ad hoc basis, through meetings, demonstrations and conversations between users and vendors, with New Media providing expertise in both look-and-feel of a final product and questions around usability, accessibility and integration with other software, systems and services.

A consulting project may or may not conclude, since New Media at times owns the selected software afterwords, and this often requires ongoing tending, management and training.