Project Management
Prior to working with us, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with our process. We use a collaborative, web-based project management application called Basecamp to keep track of all our projects. We also use a rapid prototyping tool called Invision to get feedback on the designs in action. This is a fairly common approach in the web and graphic design industry right now. Below, I’ve outlined a few other PM approaches and why we don’t employ them. It’s important to realize that while our job involves creating custom graphics, websites or applications just for you, we cannot customize our creative process for each project or tailor it to all the different clients we serve.
This is the most common alternative that our potential clients prefer. Once you sign up, Basecamp has email notifications; and you can actually use the entire application through email, so there is really no advantage at all in attempting to manage the project this way. For various reasons, Basecamp simply allows us to organize the project more efficiently.
Over the Phone
We work on a lot of B2B projects, and many of our clients are still kind of old school in that they’re used to doing all their business over the phone. Unfortunately, by its very nature, web and graphic design is an intricate and involved, technical process. Whenever we do a phone call with you, it’s our job to take notes and attempt to capture all the relevant information to communicate to our staff later. This can be fine for certain things, but attempting to run an entire project like this is unfeasible. It’s error prone, and I liken it to trying to play the children’s game telephone.
No Project Management
This is pretty uncommon. There might be some agencies that will allow projects to run this way, but we can’t do it. If you’d like us to leave you out of our process and just contact you when the project is done, please consider contacting someone else. The only thing I can really say about it is if you’re interested in working with us because of our portfolio, it’s imperative to understand that a solid and reproducible process has just as much to do with the final product as a talented designer or knowledgeable developer.
It’s also important to know that even though we strive to provide a single point of contact to all our clients, we actually do have a moderately large staff. The only way to create this dynamic is to use something like Basecamp. In the past, I think some of our clients have gotten the impression that there are only one or two people at Ingero, but that is not the case at all.
Something Besides Basecamp
For large companies with an existing project management infrastructure, we may consider this if you tell us ahead of time. This can affect what we charge, however, so please let us know well in advance of the project kicking off.