Every design team wants to complete their projects quickly and efficiently without any fuss. Sometimes that involves excluding people whose input doesn’t seem necessary. However, sometimes there are reasons to consult people outside of your team.
To deliver a superior final product, think about consulting the following people throughout the life of each project.
1. DevOps security specialists
Waiting too long to incorporate security into a web project is a bad idea. Security shouldn’t be an afterthought. Instead, security needs to be considered from the start and throughout the entire project.
There is a way to get your team, including contractors, on board with integrating security from day one. It’s called DevSecOps. A relatively new addition to the software development industry, DevSecOps adds security to the DevOps pipeline and uses the same principles to test early and often, and sends feedback in shorter cycles to catch issues at every stage of development.
You’re probably skeptical of including security people into a DevOps cycle, but it’s essential. A security team can’t make much of an impact on a project once it’s completed. They need to be involved from the start. If you’re concerned about how to make this work without contention, check out White Source Software’s recommendations for overcoming DevOps security challenges.
2. An efficient project manager
If your team doesn’t have an efficient project manager, or has no project manager, you’re in trouble. No matter how smoothly projects seem to go without a project manager, the same project would be even smoother with a manager.
It’s normal for designers and developers to settle into a groove and get used to specific routines and ways of communicating. However, sometimes those ways are inefficient and adversely affect the rest of the team. For example, it’s common for team members to be completely unaware of dependencies on their work.
Team members will work faster when they know someone else is depending on their work and can’t move forward until it’s complete. A project manager won’t leave anything up to chance and will set appropriate deadlines to make sure all work is completed in a timely manner according to everyone’s needs.
Efficient project managers have the skills required to create realistic timelines and adjust them as necessary. Many companies arbitrarily set deadlines for design projects and ignore pleas from designers for more time. This results in rushed projects that are often buggy and vulnerable.
A good project manager will remain active throughout the entire project to adjust tasks and deadlines as the scope changes.
3. Marketing
Some of the best-looking website designs work against marketing efforts. Every web project needs to consult with the client’s marketing manager before starting the project.
Every element should be strategically placed on all pages and small details can make a world of difference. For instance, a new author trying to sell copies of his or her book might not be supported by a design with a huge slideshow on the homepage. Instead, they might do better by offering a free download in that area. Only someone who knows the client’s marketing strategy can make that decision.
4. UX/UI expert
Some designers are great at implementing ideas, but lack expertise in UX/UI. Even if a project is delivered bug-free, a poor UX/UI experience will frustrate users.
Every team should have a UX/UI expert at their disposal to make sure the user interface is aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly.
Be cautious about adding too many people to a project
While every project requires numerous people to be completed effectively, adding excessive people to a project will backfire. When a project is already late, adding more people will make it even more late. Current team members will have to spend a significant amount of time orienting the new people and answering constant questions. Pulling people from other projects will put those projects behind schedule, too.
Each person added to a project should be added for a reason and not just to “staff up” the project. With more fingers in the pie, the quality of the finished product will decrease due to miscommunications, disagreements, and more sections of code to integrate.
Adding extra people to a project will also frustrate the existing team members who just want to get things done.
If a project has user experience, security, and marketing covered, that’s probably enough to produce a secure, functional product.
