Week 932

Matt Kirkland

It's Week 932!

This week I've been working with a client to refine and adjust their project scope. We're about a month into this project (codename: Prometheus), but we're going to adjust the plan a bit. This is fine!

We have a couple of different working patterns about project scope here at BNB, and they're all centered around the question of delivering the most bang for our clients buck -

Sometimes, we know exactly what we're going to build before we start. The client has a pretty clear need and workflow, and we've done a lot of prework with them to define the scope of the new tool we're going to build for them. The classic 'digital transformation' projects can be like this many times. When the project kicks off, we've got a solid roadmap and we just charge forward. Our work on the Knock project is like this!

Sometimes, our clients are doing work that's changing quickly or is even exploratory - we might have a broad idea, but we all expect to change tack as we work together. This is fine too - we set parameters about time and budget, and we work closely to make sure that as we build, explore, test, and refine that we're adapting to building the right thing.

Sometimes we only have a broad idea of what we're all going for, but then we plan for the first leg of the project to include a final scope definition and plan. That was the case in project Roberts - a year-long engagement to build a new, complex platform that serves a very big set of stakeholders in a highly contentious environment. Getting the plan right is part of the work.

And sometimes we think we're on that first path, but need to pivot as we go. We might learn more about the users, or use cases, or the clients' business needs change. This is also fine, and not in the 'dog surrounded by fire' sense of fine. It's really OK - it just takes clear and consistent communication, to make sure we're on the same page about what needs to change - features, time, budget, etc.

That's the case with Promethus this week: the original scope was a solid plan, but the projects goals have changed since we first inked that scope, and so it's time to adjust.

It's honestly a thing that BNB does really well, and we're proud of: we can be quick and flexible to serve our clients. And we can deploy that flexibility in a way that helps us build the right thing at the right time.