I am doing more and more web design at the moment and one of the areas that intrigued me was how I would manage a virtual team for a medium to large web design project.
In these days of multiple blogging tools, tools for interacting like Twitter, MSN messenger and so on and on I though of how I could use the most common tools to be effective in doing a project for a customer while making sure that everyone was in contact and keeping good records.
Google seems to have most of the tools out there that you would need to do the communications at least (storage is another days work). The team as I would see it would be working on a small design Project and would like to gather requirements, post notes and feedback and chat on small issues aas they come across them.
For e-mail for instance you could use the already solid as a rock GMail and now with multiple Inboxes you can keep business, fun, other projects e-mail in separate locations in addition to using labels. I have already started to do this so that I don't forget to put he correct mail address responding to different e-mails.
For Chat GMail chat works OK. I have never used it extensively but it seems to suffice and for a small team it would do for informal communications.
Google Docs now has all you really need for basic and not so basic document, presentation and spreadsheet work. I agree it might not give you the power of the paid applications but it would be enough for what a small Skunk Works type of team would need. It allows you share documents and chat during their presentation and gather feedback. I like the speaker notes function for presentations as well.
Today I was talking with a potential Mac customer (I use Windows). Although we will do most of our work through voice and e-mail if I do need to send him a document or presentation then Google Docs will suit the level I want. Example here is a typical list of requirements that I send to customer when they are in contact with me for web sites. I find that most customers may be technically literate but cannot process e-mail like a moretechnical person is and they need to have a document like this
The question of how you would post the prototype web site is another one that I do not have a quick answer to so perhaps others have experience of a low cost or free method of posting / hosting a design as you work through it... Let me know.
In these days of multiple blogging tools, tools for interacting like Twitter, MSN messenger and so on and on I though of how I could use the most common tools to be effective in doing a project for a customer while making sure that everyone was in contact and keeping good records.
Google seems to have most of the tools out there that you would need to do the communications at least (storage is another days work). The team as I would see it would be working on a small design Project and would like to gather requirements, post notes and feedback and chat on small issues aas they come across them.
For e-mail for instance you could use the already solid as a rock GMail and now with multiple Inboxes you can keep business, fun, other projects e-mail in separate locations in addition to using labels. I have already started to do this so that I don't forget to put he correct mail address responding to different e-mails.
For Chat GMail chat works OK. I have never used it extensively but it seems to suffice and for a small team it would do for informal communications.
Google Docs now has all you really need for basic and not so basic document, presentation and spreadsheet work. I agree it might not give you the power of the paid applications but it would be enough for what a small Skunk Works type of team would need. It allows you share documents and chat during their presentation and gather feedback. I like the speaker notes function for presentations as well.
Today I was talking with a potential Mac customer (I use Windows). Although we will do most of our work through voice and e-mail if I do need to send him a document or presentation then Google Docs will suit the level I want. Example here is a typical list of requirements that I send to customer when they are in contact with me for web sites. I find that most customers may be technically literate but cannot process e-mail like a moretechnical person is and they need to have a document like this
The question of how you would post the prototype web site is another one that I do not have a quick answer to so perhaps others have experience of a low cost or free method of posting / hosting a design as you work through it... Let me know.
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