Working Side-by-Side

This weekend may mark another — albeit minor — chapter in the evolution of my tiny backyard. A few weeks ago, we cleaned it up, pulled weeds, trimmed about 600,000 pounds of ivy off the wall, and spread some grass seed. And while the neverending rain and permanent dreary skies have put a damper on my spring enthusiasm, all that water has done wonders for my grass-growing effort. In just two-plus weeks time, my yard has evolved from a patch of dirt to a lush forest. Well, not really, but the grass really is growing pretty well.

As the grass has sprouted, it’s become painfully obvious that I didn’t do such a great job spreading it evenly. There are a few bare patches, and some areas that look much thinner than others. With Andrea away this weekend, I had originally planned to create our oddly shaped vegetable garden and plant some tomatoes, so I can stop using the canned variety. But now, it looks like I’ll be filling in the gaps with another bag or two of grass seed.

Since I can’t walk all over the fresh grass and seed, and my yet-to-be-formed garden comes right up to the edge of the new grass, it probably would not be a smart idea to tackle the garden this weekend. Which serves as a perfect built-in excuse to sit on the couch and watch sports, instead.

We sometimes run into this overlapping project problem here at DDA, as well. No, our grass here looks great, and we don’t have a vegetable garden (that I know of at least). What I mean is that there are often a few pieces of the same project that need to be worked on by different people. The graphic designer needs to make a few tweaks, one of the programmers is working on the back-end code, and Jess needs to work her search engine optimization wizardry.

But — as I’ve learned in my time here at DDA — when it comes to website design and development, only one person can access website files at a time, or else the entire Internet will implode and we’ll go back to clay tablets and papyrus (OK, that might be a little exaggeration). But at DDA, we’re on top of that issue, as well. All it takes is a little communication and a quick email. So if Jess needs to work her magic on a site, Reggie has to make a quick programming tweak, or Rob needs to upload a fancy new animation, they will often send out a quick message to make sure no one else is working on the site. Before you know it, everyone has done their thing on a particular site, and everything is ready to go!

At DDA, communication is key. Whether it’s a project coordinator keeping in touch with a client or one of our programmers letting another know exactly how they put together a piece of code, we always make sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. This allows us to be as efficient as possible on every project, and lets us each do our own little piece of a project without bumping into each other. It may seem like a small thing, but at DDA, those small things usually result in great finished products for our clients.

Entry by: Steve