First of all apologies if this is in the wrong forum (moderators please move).

 

Today I was told that my pay rise would be reflective of smoothness of the project that I will be up against next. Which ironically would be the biggest project I'm yet to face in my web development career.

 

I was also told that my my technical ability (without sounding big headed) is perfect. The area in which I lack is the planning process.

 

So here I am... I obviously want a good pay rise as I'm basically being paid peanuts at the moment (and I'm no monkey). Can you offer any tips on web development planning? I'll be using a mix of technologies. PHP, MySQL, jQuery and ajax mainly but I am confident in almost all web related programming languages!

 

The website I produce will be a pretty huge e-commerce site, it'll be using a variety of different API's and will need to incorporate abilities for mass product upload (from excel spread sheets etc).

 

So what I'm asking is:

 

Where do I begin when planning my development proccess?

How much time/effort should I put in?

Are there any programs that I would benefit from using?

Any general advice at all?

 

What I'm not asking is:

 

Where can I find a CMS which will do all this for me? (I use my own bespoke CMS).

 

Thanks in advance for replies!

 

Sam

Where do I begin when planning my development proccess?

Start by finding out why the client wants a site, and what they want to achieve with it. Then you need to get some background on their target audience, types of products they're selling and so on.

 

Ask how they want to manage their store - will they need training?

Ask about their products so you know if there are any unsual requirements

Ask about how they want to take payments

... I'm sure you get the idea!

 

How much time/effort should I put in?

As much as is needed.

 

Are there any programs that I would benefit from using?

Not sure what you mean, software wise all you need is an ecommerce platform to work with, a code editor and an image editor.

 

Any general advice at all?

In all honesty this is no different to planning any other site, the only difference being the fact that people can buy stuff on the site. The rules about usability, accessibility, site architecture etc still apply as they would on any other site.

 

Of course the big help is creating a schedule/timescale for the project and get the customer to agree to it, simplistic example:

 

Week 1 - Preplanning, background work

Week 2 - Produce wireframes

Week 3 - Meeting and feedback from clients on wireframes

Week 4 - Wireframe completion and signoff

Week 5 - a) Hand wireframe to graphics person for image creation + b ) Start template build

Week 6 - a ) Meeting and feedback from clients on graphical design + b ) More backend work

Week 7 - a) Graphic design signoff + b ) Integrate graphical elements into templates

Week 8 - Customer to supply content

etc etc

 

By doing this you can break the project down into manageble chunks, and from week to week you will know where you are (or should be).

Edited April 8, 201016 yr by BlueDreamer

Thanks for your comments (and I'm guessing moving the thread).

 

Some great tips there that I shall definitely be taking under advisement.

 

By are there any programs I can use I meant are there any pieces of software that will sort of "template" my development plan. (I'm talking about software for the planning not the actual development).

 

Thanks again for your great advice!