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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