Don’t Leave Your Clients Hanging – An 8 Step Succession Plan Guide for Solopreneur Web Developers
The first WordCamp I ever attended was WordCamp Asheville, North Carolina. It holds a special place in my heart because that’s where I first realized that so many WP folks needed help with project management
How Website Project Management is as Easy as a Grocery Shopping Trip
If you’re like a lot of website providers (me included at one time), you think project management is complicated. But guess what? If you’ve ever made it through a grocery store run, got home with
Controlling the Triple Constraint – The Key to WordPress Project Success
Website development projects are typically complex. And, just as a carpenter must consider the alignment of joints, a website developer has to think about three different constraints when managing their project: scope, time, and cost.
Five Days of Focus – A Plan for Process Improvement in 2021
This is our final episode of our Five Days of Focus 2021 – highlighting Project Management essentials. You want to earn more money and make your clients happier. Hell, we all do! But you might
Five Days of Focus – Why Approval Doesn’t Matter
This is Day 2 of our Five Days of Focus 2021 – highlighting Project Management essentials. This week has been all about the art of the perfect proposal, and we’re well on the way to
Five Days of Focus – How Using a Content-First Development Approach Saves Money
Day 3 of our 5 Days of focus 2020. Okay, so you’ve got your proposal equipped with your master services agreement, and you’re starting to set clear expectations with your clients. You’re almost ready to
Five Days of Focus – How to Define your WordPress Project Scope
This is Day 2 of our Five Days of Focus preparing for 2021 – highlighting Project Management essentials. In our heart of hearts, everyone’s a little bit of a people-pleaser. We love to see the people
Essential Project Management Processes Every Agency Needs
If you’ve been following me for any time at all, you know I talk about the Six Productivity Principles for WordPress Project Success – ALL. THE. TIME. But they changed my life. That’s so trite
Content-First Development: A Comprehensive Guide
If you’ve signed up for any of my freebies or the WP Project Manager’s Academy, then you know that I ask this question a lot. “What are you struggling with most?” Far and away the
How to Use GoDaddy Pro to Be More Productive
Is the task of keeping all your clients’ websites updated taking a big chunk of your time? Here’s a 5 minute video to show you how to save TONS of time on plugin updates and
Can We Talk About Your WordPress Estimating Process?
In recent episodes of this “Can We Talk” video series, we’ve been talking about all of the standard processes and plans that your WordPress agency or you as an individual provider need to have in
Elements of a Good Change Control Procedure
This is Episode 6 of “Can We Talk About Your WordPress Projects” and you’ll be happy to know I have given up doing the cheesy Brooklyn accent in these videos. I still hear it that
Change Management – The Key to Controlling Scope Creep
Can We Talk About Your WordPress Projects? – Episode 5. In the past few episodes and in a few more, we are talking about the standard processes you need to have in place for your
Why You Need an Acceptance Management Plan in Your WordPress Practice
This is the Episode 2 of my new Video Series “Can We Talk About Your WordPress Projects?” AND, this is the 1st in a series that details all the repeatable processes and plans a WordPress
Who ARE you? WordPress Designer, Developer, Consultant, or Analyst?
The Case for Better WordPress Titles I recently referred to a highly technically-savvy WordPress practitioner as a “WordPress Developer” and was quickly corrected that he was not a developer, because he did not write code
If You’re Not Using a 2-Step Proposal Process for your WordPress Project, You Are Shooting Yourself In The Foot
This is a re-recording of a Facebook Live I did last week showing you how using a 2-step proposal process will keep you from giving away work for free, get paid for detailed discovery, and
4 Best Practices Successful WordPress Providers Use to Get Content from the Client on Time
All you have to do is pose a question in a WordPress Facebook group or other WordPress-focused forum regarding getting content from the client. Chances are you will get a litany of responses that clearly
7 Steps to Estimating WordPress Website Content
I read an article recently that stated the opinion that “content-first” is a bad WordPress website strategy because it doesn’t consider the first purpose of a business website… to make money. The premise of the
Why We Need a WordPress Website Development Methodology
At first, I wasn’t sure if I should call this thing that I think we need a website development framework or a methodology so I looked up the terms. As it turns out, technically, a
How a Content-First Approach Can Help Control WordPress Scope Creep
First, let’s look at how things typically happen on a WordPress web development project, or ANY web development process for that matter. You and the client agree on the site design and a target date
What Does It Mean to Define a WordPress Project in Detail?
People commonly want to know more about what is involved in Principle # 1 – Define the Job in Detail with a Content-First Approach. It’s interesting because, in practice, the other principles are really subsets
The 6 Principles of WordPress Productivity
It’s important for you to know right up front that the 6 Principles of WordPress Productivity are not entirely original. History of the 6 Principles of WordPress Productivity Back in the 1980’s, John Keane, the founder and
Why We Use a 2-Step WordPress Project Proposal Approach
It is a “given” that all WordPress practitioners will complete an estimate at the beginning of a project. The problem is, in many cases, the initial estimate is also the final estimate. Estimating should not
The Importance of a WordPress Project Acceptance Management Plan
On any web development project, WordPress or not, delivering a result that the client accepts is not always easy. Too often, the developers sequester themselves while they work on the project and then emerge with