Company and Subcontractor Management

Company and Subcontractor Management

Susan Fennema, Chaos Eradicating Officer (CEO) of Beyond the Chaos, and I discuss the ins and outs of company and subcontractor management in the third video in our 6 video series.  There will be three more videos in the New Year.

 

Today, we talk about communications, on boarding, and helping subcontractors manage their time and obligations:

What are the communication requirements for the team?

  • Should a sub speak to a client without you or a team member present?
  • What internal software tools does your team use that a sub might need to be involved in and how much do you WANT them in it? (Slack, Basecamp Chat, etc)
  • Separation between employee-conversations and sub conversations
  • Recommend against ever giving out personal cell phone numbers – set up conference calls or use Slack to call out
  • Consider setting up a company email address that subs use to communicate to clients or all written communications go through project management tool

How do you bring a sub on board?

  • Explain the company structure
  • Training vs jumping in
  • Senior vs junior devs
  • On boarding process (and off boarding process)
  • rReviewing work before sending to the client (Q/A)

As a sub, how do I manage working with different clients and keeping time obligations?

  • Blocks of time on the calendar
  • Confidentiality – especially when working with some of the same people at other shops
  • Multiple project management packages? Set them as your startup pages on the web and go to your tasks for that client
  • Explain what happens if a client puts something on hold
  • Ask for more work if you have a gap
  • Understand expectations and COMMUNICATE – over communicate your availability and how you can be contacted

Join Susan and I in the New Year with three new videos:

  • Communicating with your Project Manager
  • Meeting Expectations 
  • Being Responsible as a Developer
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