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Project Management: Sometimes mediation is necessary

I’ve been developing a project for a client and have sourced out some work to a developer who came recommended. Now if you know anything about the development world you know that sometimes it can take days and at worst case, weeks and months to hear anything back about a project. My policy on developing for a customer is to give regular feedback, set customer expectations realistically and that way everyone wins.

Some developers like to just pound out the code and upload and that’s it… you’re done. Well the other day I was working a project with this developer (no, I won’t name names) and it had been 5 days since I’d heard a peep from him.

Naturally I was concerned and told him if I couldn’t get feedback and an update about the project I would have to involve a mediator, which was provided by the third-party payment service involved. The deadline for his response came and past and I was forced with a decision. “Do I get a mediator involved or Don’t I?” Now, I don’t like being a hard-ass, I think that the best development happens in an open and free environment but sometimes it is necessary, but sometimes it gets results.

So naturally the next step was to move into mediation and this got a response from the developer. He told me the project was about half done and he’d have something online in the next day and asked me to cancel mediation. Now I am waiting to see the fruits of his labor and wondering if this deadline will come and pass just like all the others. I guess only time will tell.

This brings a few points to light that I would like to highlight for people out their hiring developers or a development team…

• When hiring a developer look for one that is an excellent communicator – now while this sounds basic it is universal. If a developer you hire has a poor response time to start, how do you picture that relationship going?
• Try to get a referral of past work – past work and happy customers are always a sign of good things to come.
• Find out the schedule your developer keeps – A lot of times, developers work funny times and why should you stand in their way? If working at 4:23 am coding up your application or site gives them the creativity to get things done then by all means… go for it. Just remember to get this hammered out first. The fewer surprises you face when developing a project, the better.

While you cannot safe guard yourself completely because after all people are people just remember that if you handle yourself professionally and with integrity it is usually easily to see a clear solution to the problem you are having.

Lucas

“Mediator” in training