Plan Ahead — Don’t Run Out of Gas
On the way to work, I listen to an entertaining morning radio show. One of the features of this show is the “Bizarre File,” where one of the hosts highlights a few off-the-wall news stories from around the world. This morning, one of them really made me laugh, and actually inspired a blog post (in a really off-the-wall way).
Apparently, two friends got together recently in Florida and planned a bank robbery. On the day of the heist, everything seemed to be going well for these criminals. They got their money from the teller, ran out of the bank, and jumped into their getaway car. That’s where everything went wrong.
The car ran out of gas.
Needless to say, these criminals were quickly arrested, and are facing serious charges. And while they won’t admit it, I’m sure the police officers who made the arrests got a few good laughs out of it once they got back to the station (or maybe even as it was happening).
Here at DDA, we obviously don’t encourage bank robberies, but we could have taught these guys a few things about planning ahead. Every project at DDA begins with a VERY detailed, well planned, and intricate proposal. Obviously, we can never really know everything about a project before we dive into it. But Toni and David listen very carefully to a client’s needs, and pride themselves on creating a proposal that covers every possible scenario and every single detail of the project. We never simply propose a “New Website.” Instead, we include all the proposed areas of the site, any extra features, any back-end administration, design time, copywriting time, etc. etc.
This not only helps us estimate the time needed for the project, but it also serves as a perfect roadmap at every step along the way. Whoever works on the project down the road — whether it is a custom programmer, animator, copywriter, or graphic designer – knows just how much time has been estimated for their portion, and exactly what needs to be done.
Now, this doesn’t mean that we never have to adjust on the fly. Things come up, changes are needed, and we often have to shift gears down the road. And as much as we plan ahead, we also pride ourselves on our quick-thinking nature.
And since it’s Thursday, let’s hope everyone has a full tank of gas to make it home safely tonight!
Entry by: Steve