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Interviews with the project managers

FullCodePress judge, and technical editor at SitePoint, Matt Magain interviewed Marla Mitelman and Thomas Scovell, projects managers for Team Australia and the CodeBlacks respectively. Here’s what they said.

Interview with Marla Mitelman:

Matthew Magain:
As a PM, you have ultimate responsibility for the success of the project. How hands-on were you in this project?
Marla Mitelman:
The solution was definitely a collaborative effort between the whole team and the client. I was hands-on with some of the production and content entry, and also defining the solution. But it was a team effort for the most part.
Matthew:
How did you find managing a team of people that you barely know?
Marla:
It was surprisingly easy, but I think that’s due to the team being comprised of such professionals. Everyone understood their primary area of delivery and were also happy to pitch in wherever required to get the job done.
Matthew:
How do you determine what falls in and out of scope in such a tight deadline?
Marla:
Asking the team “What’s left to do?”, “How much time do we have?” and making decisions based on the responses to those questions. We originally had wanted to include; a search, resolution-dependent style sheets, individual pull quotes for each page of the site and other things. We had to drop all of those to allow us to complete the site on time.
Matthew:
What tools did you use to stay organised?
Marla:
A white board and a note pad. That’s it.
Matthew:
What was the biggest hurdle for you personally, and how did you tackle this hurdle?
Marla:
Just staying alert and focussed for 24 hours was a challenge. The chocolate and caffeinated drinks definitely helped. The sleep deprivation was the hardest part of the whole challenge. Around 3am I started to wonder why I ever thought this would be a good way to spend a weekend. Then our clients came back down to see the site around 6am and their enthusiasm spurred me on.

Interview with Thomas Scovell:

Matthew Magain:
As a PM, you have ultimate responsibility for the success of the project. How hands-on were you in this project?
Thomas Scovell:

The term “hands-on” is an interesting one with regards to project management. I like to think of project management as being “facilitation” — that is, helping people get their jobs done and working together smoothly. We had such a great team that there was no “herding of cats” involved at all. It was just about tying the various roles together — keeping people talking and … fetching coffee!The interesting thing about this contest was that our initial thought, like that of most people, was: “A website in 24 hours? No chance!”. But if you crunch the numbers — 24 hours with 7 people — this actually gives us 168 person-hours of effort. At industry rates this is around $25,000 of professional labour — not an unfeasible budget at all for a project of this type.

The biggest hurdle was that all seven of us were working those 24 hours at the same time. For many in the industry a web project follows a “waterfall” approach — one activity conducted by a certain role taking place and then informing the next. Clearly that couldn’t work for this contest, or we’d have four hours of activity each, and be sitting on our hands waiting a lot!We had to approach this is a more agile fashion, and whilst we didn’t use any specific “big A” Agile methodology in our approach we certainly used a number of techniques that let us work closer together and make best use of the time. And as with Agile in general, it wasn’t just about making use of the time/budget best but also working together towards a better quality solution.

We had a tentative time-line sketched out which we took into the contest, and stuck to for the most part. We then time-boxed our activities within these allocations, working together so that everyone was working productively on things they could get on with while dependencies were satisfied. This was my biggest role — making sure that everyone had something useful to do and was having as much input as they could into the process. Because our team was a bunch of multi-skilled collaborators, not just a collection of individual role experts.

Matthew:
How did you find managing a team of people that you barely know?
Thomas:
I think one of our advantages as a team was the time we spent prior to the event getting to know each other. Whilst we spent some time planning how we might work together during the competition, what I think really worked for us was the time we spent together just shooting the breeze and understanding the dynamics of the team on a personal level.
Matthew:
How do you determine what falls in and out of scope in such a tight deadline?
Thomas:

By risking time up front to have the discussions with your client. With “only” 24 hours it would seem like every minute not spent actually building is a minute lost. But every minute spent with a client understanding their needs, their audience’s needs and the relative priorities of these, is well spent.

Out of that fell a planning session around how best to satisfy the requirements. While we did create a solution that seemed buildable within the hours remaining, we also made sure we established a road-map for how the site might evolve after launch. So any requirements that might have needed to be put on the “back burner” weren’t de-scoped entirely — a website is “never done”, as we say.

Matthew:
What tools did you use to stay organised?
Thomas:
Dialogue. We used more technology and tools in the pre-planning than during the contest itself. In the weeks before we used a wiki (pbwiki.com) for anyone interested in specifics) to plan the logistics of the contest, capture ideas and the like. This worked really well, but during the competition itself we knew that our greatest danger was that we would not talk and stay aligned. So we decided to eschew technology and just go with regular discussions. The difficulty there is balancing interrupting “the flow” and talking frequently enough. We mostly struck the right balance — there were only a few “Not nows!” barked.
Matthew:
What was the biggest hurdle for you personally, and how did you tackle this hurdle?
Matthew:
Managing risks is the biggest hurdle for any project, I find; balancing conservatism with pushing a project to its limits in terms of potential quality. With a team of people you aren’t entirely familiar with, you have to trust that they can do what they say they can do in the time given! As I said, we did have sufficient pre-planning sessions that I felt I could trust the team to deliver — and they sure did!
Date:
October 14th, 2007
Author:
admin
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News
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How did it start?

FullCodePress judge, and technical editor at SitePoint, Matt Magain interviewed Mike Brown from Webstock on how FullCodePress came about.

Matthew Magain:
How did the idea for the event come about?
Mike Brown:
I was thinking up ideas for Webstock, a conference we’re running in February in Wellington, and had the idea of teams building a website in a day. I was also influenced by the “American Chopper” shows, where teams of experts combine to build a customised chopper in a short time period. I’m not into choppers at all, but they are very cool programmes to watch. I really wanted to have an old grizzled guy with lots of tats be at FullCodePress and go around yelling and swearing at people. I’d hoped Peter Firminger (from WIPA) might have filled that role, but it wasn’t to beSo that was the idea of teams of people coming together to build websites. But then it suddenly hit me that this would make for a great Trans-Tasman battle. So I got in touch with Russ Weakley at WIPA (Web Industry Professionals Association) and we decided to make it a joint production between Webstock and WIPA.Initially I focused on the sports aspect of it. The idea of a “geek Olympics”, where it’s a competition between countries. And that’s really important. But it soon became clear, once we started getting details of organisations who wanted to have websites done, that the “killer” aspect to the event was creating great website for worthy recipients.
Matthew Magain:
The tagline for Full Code Press is “no excuses, no extensions, no budget overruns”. Is this reflective of many web projects?
Mike Brown:
From memory I came up with that line at the end of a long day! I suspect it’s reflective on just about any project - our house is getting renovated at present and it’s behind schedule and over-budgetBut I wanted to make it clear that for FullCodePress there really wasn’t going to be anywhere to hide. At the end of 24hrs, whatever the team had come up with was going to be on public display, and scrutinized hard by the judges. So I think it took a certain amount of courage by those in the teams to be involved.
Matthew Magain:
Given the success of today’s event, do you see this model being extended from non-profits to include paying clients? Other industries? Build a car in 24 hours? An aeroplane?
Mike Brown:
Hmmm, great ideas! I think we need a tv programme. Halfway through the event, we did consider adding a “Survivor” element to the mix. We thought of entering each team room around midnight and telling them they had 10mins to vote someone off the team, and then leaving them there with someone recording on video. Wise heads prevailed in the decision not to do this!Certainly I think there’s potential to extend the idea to something like, “Build a web app in 48 hours”. I think paying clients wouldn’t have the same appeal as non-profits though. And it would pay to remember, that although the sites were created in 24hrs, if you took 7 people x 24hrs x their hourly rate, it would add up to a reasonable cost!One issue, though, is that we’re all (Webstock and WIPA) doing this in our spare time. It’s not a commercial venture, so there’s a possibly a limit to how far we can take it with the current setup.
Matthew Magain:
Any more you can tell me about the next event, planned for Feb in Wellington?
Mike Brown:
Next year, from 11-15 February in Wellington, New Zealand, there’ll be the Webstock conference. On the weekend immediately before, 9-10 February, we’ll be running the next FullCodePress. We’d like to open it up to as many international teams as we can get. To date, we’ve had interest from people in over 20 countries in taking part, countries as diverse as Sri Lanka, Iran, Venezuela, England, Canada, Czech Republic and Bangladesh.If we could get even some of these countries taking part, it would be a wonderful event! We’ll be opening up the FullCodePress site soon to take registrations of interest from people who’d like to be considered for these teams.We all think there’s huge potential for the event, and the chance to meet and share with people from all around the world would be something those taking part would always remember.
Date:
September 30th, 2007
Author:
admin
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News
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The visual design process

FullCodePress judge, and technical editor at SitePoint, Matt Magain interviewed the two designers - Sarah Peeke from Team Australia and Steve Dennis from the CodeBlacks - about how they went about things and coped with sleep deprivation. Here’s what they said, followed by some comments from Matt about the designs themselves.

Interview with Sarah Peeke

Matthew Magain:
How did you tackle the hurdle of creating your client’s visual identity in only a few hours?
Sarah Peeke:

I came into this competition thinking the organisation would already have an official logo in place. Once we agreed that there was a need to create one, it certainly presented a further challenge.

The name of our charity was The Ripple Effect (an organisation that helps change the lives of Thai children and their communities). I wanted to steer away from the cliché of water drops, and the client had mentioned that they wanted to incorporate the children’s hands into the branding, so that was what I focussed on. In the end, though, there were many design elements and other finishing touches that I had ready to implement which, unfortunately, we didn’t have time to include.

MM:
Did you follow your usual design process? Any shortcuts taken?
SP:
My preparation for the event involved analysing what I could do to become more efficient. It really helped me to question my normal design process, and I’ve actually come away from FCP with a more efficient design strategy. I guess time constraints meant that the creative process was limited. I would normally spend a lot longer on a client’sidentity/branding for example.
MM:
How did you find the sleep deprivation, and how did you deal with that?
SP:
Actually, surprisingly well. I deliberately ate fresh fruit and salads during mealtimes so I didn’t feel too sluggish, and avoided indulging in too much coffee and chocolate etc. It was only once the event was over that I felt like I’d been on a flight to the UK and back. It took a couple of days to feel human again.
MM:
What tools did you use to stay organised?
SP:
Well, I spent a few days prior to the event developing a new tool called myColorizer, which incorporates all my favourite color tools into one browser-based user interface. It includes a color mixer, harmonizer, converter and template simulator. But best of all I can store client identity colors and other colors to be used in the website in palettes on the same page. There is also a built in color contrast analyser which uses the AERT color contrast algorithms and luminosity contrast ratio. I’m hoping to make a “lite” and “pro” version available in the near future. Other than that, I made up some mock illustrator/photoshop templates in various resolution widths to help save time on the day.
MM:
What was the biggest hurdle for you personally, and how did you tackle this hurdle?
SP:
Not knowing the client (obviously), and not having met the other team members - we’d only had the opportunity to chat/email on a few occasions. Otherwise, I’d have to say, from a design/coding perspective, that it was somewhat frustrating trying to wrangle our “CMS of choice” to output clean, effective results efficiently. In the end, I think whatgot us over the line was the fact that we all really respected one another’s areas of expertise, we communicated freely, were flexible and really enjoyed working together. Would I do it again? Now that I’ve caught up on my sleep, you bet!

Interview with Steve Dennis

Matt Magain:
How did you tackle the hurdle of creating your client’s visual identity in only a few hours?
Steve Dennis:

It’s probably fair to say that our client (Grampians disAbility Advocacy Association) didn’t really have a clear vision for what they wanted out of the site, or a real appreciation for what was possible.

We spent the first two hours working through what their organisation was about, trying to bed down exactly what the site should try to achieve. When it became clear that there were three main target audiences for the site (people with disabilities, carers, and agencies) we decided that the site needed its own brand. Because a significant portion of the audience may have vision or reading problems, we kept the name short, bold, and used Helvetica Neue as the typeface for legibility.

It wasn’t an ideal situation certainly. Being able to easily draw visual parallels from what the GdAA do sped things up a lot, as did the lack of client revisions. My only requirements for the logo was that it was colourful, exceptionally easy to read, and simple, without seeming patronising. The whole thing was a bit of a gamble at the time, because if they didn’t go for it, I would have just wasted more than an hour. It worked out in the end though.

MM:
Did you follow your usual design process? Any shortcuts taken?
SD:
I didn’t have any plans going in about what kind of process I was going to follow. I tend to work in a pretty ‘agile’ (unorganised) way to start with, as I find I can come up with more creative ideas when im not limited by organisation. Then i’ll kind of take those ideas and tweak them to fit the requirements. The first concepts I came up with were pretty much what we ended up running with, so I didn’t have to worry about doing multiple concepts, or having too much in the way of client revisions and changes. They were shown what we were doing a few times during the process, but they loved what we were doing and didn’t have any changes really. It was actually one of the easiest designs I’ve done all year because of this.
MM:
How did you find the sleep deprivation, and how did you deal with that?
SD:
It was actually a lot easier than I expected. Once you’re focussed time goes really quickly, then you get your second wind. I didn’t end up sleeping until about 7pm on the sunday night. I tried energy drinks early on, but I think I had a few too many and my tongue started hurting… I don’t reccommend that at all. Coffee and lots of laughs were the key to success.
MM:
What tools did you use to stay organised?
SD:
The biggest thing was really just communicating well at all times, and having a good project manager like Thomas on hand to help solve any problems we ran into.
MM:
What was the biggest hurdle for you personally, and how did you tackle this hurdle?
SD:
Definitely using the existing GdAA logo. I think branding the website differently was an absolutely essential step in creating a great community focused site. Luckily its a hurdle I’m used to - I was just lucky they were receptive to the idea.

Matt’s comments on visual design for Team Australia’s site

One of the biggest strengths of The Ripple Effect’s design is the attention to detail - the drop shadows and gradients are subtle and don’t fight for attention. The recurring elements of handprints is a nice constant reminder of teamwork and the nature of this charity’s work, too.

My criticisms pertain to the logo and the colour scheme. The logo doesn’t feel fully developed to me — the single handprint works well, but there’s something about the type that feels a little too generic. Whether the kerning between letters is not quite right, or possibly there is not enough contrast between the top and bottom lines. I’d also suggest that a font like Century Gothic is maybe better suited to a different type of organisation, like an art gallery or a fashion house.

My other comment is that the green/grey colour scheme results in the pages feeling a little cold, and easily mistaken for a charity that is involved inenvironmental campaigns. For a site that is trying to attract enthusiastic volunteers who want to get involved and get active, some warmer colours might have been more appropriate (possibly drawing upon some of the rich colours available in Thai culture, especially given that the logo reflects nothing about Thailand). It also feels to me like the site’s header drops away to nothing at the edges. A sharp border alongside such solid whitespace gives a feeling of incompleteness, although it’s possible that this is one element that was not completed due to time constraints.

However, overall the attention to detail and subtle touches still make this a really effective, clean design.

Matt’s comments on visual design for the CodeBlack’s site

I think from a visual design and general identity angle, the CodeBlacks definitely had the more difficult challenge to tackle. The client had an existing logo that is, well, obviously not something that was designed by a graphic designer. Having to create an identity that was both new and supplementary must have been very difficult and risky, but the logo and colour scheme works really well - I like the hierarchy reflected in the colours chosen, and I like the fact that, even though the main colours are bold and bright, they are not default pantones but instead slightly muddier shades of the primary colours. The combination of rounded corners and rough, grungy lines is effective at portraying the organisation as beingmodern, without being too cliched.

My main criticism is that the hierarchy created by the colour scheme (red for people with disabilities, yellow for carers/families and green for agencies) that is terrific for users to orient themselves gets lost once you leave the home page, although this is possibly more an IA issue.

Date:
September 4th, 2007
Author:
admin
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News
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Team interviews

There’s been a number of people asking for more information about how the sites were built - the platforms used, the approach taken, the interaction with the client. Over the course of the next week or so, we’ll be publishing interviews with various team members.

The judges for the competition will be interviewing the two team members from the CodeBlacks and Team Australia who worked in that judge’s area of expertise. They’ll be asking some questions of the team members and also saying a little about how they found and judged the sites. We think it’ll be a fascinating look into how the teams operated and what decisions they needed to make.

We’ll also be publishing more details about the next FullCodePress soon. It’s due to be held in Wellington, New Zealand on 9-10 February next year. It’ll be open to a number of international teams, and we’re currently looking for organisers of these teams.

Date:
August 25th, 2007
Author:
admin
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A huge thank you to all our volunteers

You may have noticed that there was extensive online activity on the FullCodePress website and associated outlets.

In the 24 hours of the event, a series of dedicated volunteers took hundreds of photos - over 330 of which were quickly edited and pumped onto Flickr.

These volunteers also wrote and posted 122 blog posts, allowing us to give minute by minute descriptions of the unfolding events.

There were 175 official twitter posts (not counting the mass of twitter posts that were done by people from their own twitter accounts). Twitter turned out to be the hook that drew many people in to the event. The speed and frequency of posts as well as the immediacy and quickness of the comments allowed those away from the event to get a feeling for what was going on - in real time.

The volunteers also videoed, edited, top and tailed (adding intros and sponsor logos) and then uploaded 17 amazing videos to YouTube - while the event unfolded - with more to come in the next week or so.

So, a huge thank you to all volunteers on behalf of the two groups, WIPA and Webstock!

Date:
August 21st, 2007
Author:
admin
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News
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6 Comments »

CodeBlacks win!!

The CodeBlacks have won FullCodePress! In an extremely close decision, the judges have gone with the New Zealand team. Judges commented on how well both sides have performed, especially given the nature of the competition - clients they’d never met before, 24hr deadline and incessant interuption to be photographed, interviewed and videoed.

Both clients were ecstatic with the end result, and it’s fair to say there’ll be ongoing relationships between the teams and the clients.

The award for “best and fairest player” went to Ruth Ellison from the Australian team.

That’s it for a while from FullCodePress. We’re off for lunch, a drink and a sleep! Thanks for watching, and we’d love to get feedback on how you found the whole event.

Date:
August 19th, 2007
Author:
admin
Tags:

Category:
News, judging
Comments:
37 Comments »

Judges meeting with the teams

The judges just finished their meeting with the individual teams and are now on final discussions.. who will win.. stay tuned..

(ajay is still tired and wired)

Date:
August 19th, 2007
Author:
admin
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Category:
News
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3 Comments »

Judges in lockdown

The judges have gone into lockdown to assess the two sites. They will be interviewing the two teams individually within the next 30 minutes. Stay tuned for the final announcement around 12noon (AEST).

Date:
August 19th, 2007
Author:
admin
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Category:
News
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1 Comment »

Watching the judges

Am sitting in with the judges right now. They’ve just spent 15mins with each of the organisations, talking with them about what they how, how the sites have matched their needs and how they found the process.

It’s been at times quite a moving process as we’ve heard how the websites are going to help. I think one of the wonderful things about the whole process has been how the interaction between clients and teams has opened eyes and increased understanding on both sides. In particular, seeing clients’ eyes light up as they’ve explained how the teams have told them about some of the possibilities the websites open up to them has been wonderful.

The judges are now all sitting at thier laptops, making notes as they work through each site. Each judge has three categories they’re looking at, plus everyone’s making comment on the site overall. The categories are:

  • Purpose
  • Visual design
  • Content
  • Development
  • User experience
  • Standards
  • Accessibility
  • Innovation
  • Functionality
  • Overall impression

Next up, the judges will be grilling each theam, and each team will be selling what they’ve done to the judges.

Mike

Date:
August 19th, 2007
Author:
admin
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Category:
News, judging
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Closed session

After a group gather and thanking everybody, both the teams have now left to chill out/de-stress/sleep.

The judges are now in a closed session and things are going as planned.

Off to get a snack myself and hopefully more news will follow soon and hope all you guys out there are still following us here on the blog and on twitter.

(ajay is very tired)…

Date:
August 19th, 2007
Author:
admin
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Category:
News
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1 Comment »
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