Starting a project
By Steven Hillaert on Saturday 12 September 2009, 11:41 - general - Permalink
Isn't it great, you suddenly have THE idea, the one that will change the world, or at least your financial situation :-)
But besides having that idea, creating and delivering it you will also have to organize, structure, create/find/share information, collaborate... and preferably in a cost effective way (free) Here I'll give you some ideas and tools to accomplish this. All the tools are based on collaboration and sharing over the internet so your partners in crime can even be on different continents and these tools are not only for technical projects.
Structure
First of all you'll need to structure the files and information you'll be creating and gathering.... This will help you find the documents and keep a clear overview of the information. Here is an example structure, feel free to create your own:
00 Initiate
01 Requirements
02 Application
01 Design
Graphics
02 Test
03 Manuals
04 Operations
Setup Client
Setup Server
03 Data
...........
Tools
Organization
This means structuring the execution of the project, todo lists, milestones,
discussions, responsibilities... Checkout Basecamp, they have several plans including a free
one to handle 1 project.
Sharing
To easily share your files I propose Microsoft Live Mesh, it allows
you to sync files between your pc's, your online Live Mesh Desktop and with
other people using Live Mesh. Think of it as syncing your files in the cloud.
You just have to install the client, tell it which folders to sync and you're
ready. Just work on your files locally and when you save them they will
automatically get synced with the cloud and with the people that have access.
It works on Windows, Windows Mobile and Mac. Even if you're working alone on
this project I would suggest using this tool, you automatically have a backup
and you can reach your files from any pc with an internet connection. The only
thing it doesn't do is keep a history of your files so you can't retrieve an
older version of your document, for that you'll need the the tools from the
following section...
Versioning
If you want to keep track of previous versions of your documents (code,
graphics,...) you'll need a versioning tool. Most free solutions are based on
Subversion, this is an open source source-control system. This is a bit more
technical to implement but not to difficult. You'll need a hosting company for
your repository and one or two client applications.
XP-Dev has several plans to host your
repository including a free one. Once this is set up you'll need an application
to retrieve and commit changes from and to your repository. TortoiseSVN is a free tool that integrates
with the file explorer and if you're using Visual Studio to do the coding you
can use AnkhSVN to integrate with
the IDE.
Information
In the course of the project you will probably also do a lot of research and
information gathering. This will not always happen in a structured way, you'll
want to gather the information first, analyze it and then maybe give it some
structure. THE tool for this is Evernote, it
runs on every platform and it has a handy browser plugin that allows you to
store chunks of information from a website directly in your Evernote notebook.
If you use it on your PDA you can take pictures with it and when it gets synced
to your notebook it also gets indexed with OCR.
Motivation
Now comes the most important part, delivering the actual project. This might sound easy in the beginning but after a few weeks or months you might get a bit demotivated, distracted with other things. Basically you lost your motivation, this can easily happen when you're working alone on the project. In a group this will happen less likely because you keep each other accountable for the progress and result, of course working with other people (friends, family...) will have other impacts or difficulties on the project but those are outside the scope of this article.
If you're doing it on yourself try to find somebody that will keep you accountable. Also try to use that person as a mentor, someone who has an opinion and ideas. Don't ask somebody who is too nice, it needs to be somebody who will chase you if you don't deliver.
Another way is to promote your product/service when it's still in its concept or development stage. Write blog about your progress, twitter and facebook it. Don't be affraid to share your ideas and progress. This might create a community from which you can get fresh ideas and input from possible clients. This will also make you accountable to the whole internet :-)









