CodeBlacks at the 9hr mark
I asked Thomas Scovell, NZ project manager if they’re on track. The answer, “Yes, surprisingly!” The CodeBlacks are working to a timeline they’d drawn up earlier, and althought they knew it would change some, what’s pleasing is how little it actually has.
The team has found the client “awesome” to deal with. They’ve had a lot time with them and found them willing to come back and work through ideas, but also “go away” for a while so the CodeBlacks can work through the next iteration. What’s been especially pleasing is how amenable they’ve been to ideas, and how quickly they’ve picked up a lot of web concepts and made decisions on how those concepts would suit their audience.
Thomas sounded a little disappointed when he had to admit there really hasn’t been any tense discussions among the team on direction! I think he would have enjoyed the opportunity to have everyone put their point of view and then lead through a process of resolution. So, whilst team members do have final say in their area of speciality, because everyone has such a rounded knowledge of the web process, no one’s pushing the boundaries too far.
I asked about the challenges ahead. Key is going to be pulling all the pieces together. A lot of work’s been done in parrallel to date, but always looming has been how and when it’s integrated. Thomas thinks around midnight is going to be a crunch-time, when the HTML/CSS templates are started to be integrated to the back-end functionality.
And will there be any time left over at the end? The CodeBlacks hope there’s an opportunity to sit down a few hours before the end and make a decision about what polish they can add to the site, or if there’s any new features they can quickly add. But they know they’ve got to get the basics nailed first.