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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#641

Post by lelanthran »

ElectricalUnion wrote: post #555
jokethrowaway wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd bet you a large sum of money this agency used Agile. Agile is not a guarantee of deliverables you care about. There is a lot of useless stuff you can deliver.

Well, waterfall used to not deliver anything at all. Not delivering anything is pretty useless.

> Well, waterfall used to not deliver anything at all. Not delivering anything is pretty useless.

That's pretty much untrue; had this project been a waterfall project then:

a) The devs would not have gotten paid until they hit particular milestones,

b) The deliverables would have been scoped upfront,

c) The agency would have eaten the cost of developing useless things, not the customer.

Because this was obviously an agile/Agile project:

a) The payment milestones were not specified upfront,

b) The devliverables remained unscoped until feedback was needed (which was well into the development phase),

c) The client eats the cost of developers time, whether or not milestones are hit.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#642

Post by fvold »

doctor_eval wrote: post #560
ratww wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I still like Agile and Scrum, as much as other devs might hate it. “Yeah I want REAL deliverables after the first or second week”. Keeps me honest. And will keep me from working with architecture astronauts don’t really deliver anything but hot air and build ultra-extensible structures that are actually impossible to extend beyond the fantasy world of their maker. Or the equivalent for designers.

Agile and scrum are in practice such nebulous terms that while I don’t doubt that you have had good experience with the particular version of these concepts that you yourself use, the agency could well consider itself to be using the same concepts - yet here we are. The older I get, the more I come to understand that the problem with projects is people, not methodology. 30% of IT projects still fail, despite “agile”…

I've had someone tell me, with a straight face and serious voice, to "stick to the agile process from now on"

Re: I regret my website redesign

#643

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

achikin wrote: post #614
nerdawson wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure some do have that attitude but I don't believe, for most, that they're choosing to operate that way. TinyPilot is clearly successful and growing. Any smart agency would nurture that relationship, deliver a great product, and secure an ongoing relationship. By contrast, there's a huge amount of reputational risk in allowing things to spiral. They've walked away with more today but imagine for a moment the dam…

But hey, they were not named :) And that lines up with my experience in agencies - there is always an “Isaac” who’s job is to cool the customer down.

Yes, I’m very confused why he did not make the agency.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#644

Post by austhrow743 »

wafriedemann wrote: post #464
alberth wrote: post #270

My heart goes out to this guy ... For those unaware, the blogger left a high-paying job at Google 4-years ago [1] to start his own business and over those last 4-years, unfortunately, hasn't really made any money/profit [2] His blog is a treasure trove of insights and lessons learned along the way. Highly recommend for others to read. [1] https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/ [2] https://mtlynch.io/solo-developer-yea…

Wait what. He worked for Google and is not able to build a website like this himself?

What does being a google dev teach you about marketing?

Re: I regret my website redesign

#646

Post by seangp »

stared wrote: post #520
napbree wrote: post #261

Digital Agency Owner Here... I have to say, this is difficult to read and it gives a bad name to other agencies. - I think the first "mistake" was not having it as a fixed price. We spend a lot of time up-front defining the scope and get sign off before committing to the work. After that, we roll it through the relevant departments. We take the risk on for bugs/issues (that are within scope) and do the project as a f…

I agree with most, especially that OP left the tap open. No risk for an agency and de facto unrestricted costs for OP. With one exception of a blanket statement: > - A good agency IS better than a freelancer If there is a single freelancer: - There is a single person responsible. If it gets diffused, it may easily end in an unending project, as no one is incentivized to finalize the project. - The number of people wo…

For me, the 3 key downsides to a single freelancer is:

* You’re totally dependent on a single point of failure. If they get ill, go on holiday or simply disappear, take on another project or go full time somewhere else, then you’re left in the lurch - particularly post-live when you may need additional support/amends/bug fixes.

* I’m yet to find a single freelancer that can project manage, UX, design, write copy and build to a high standard in all areas. You’ll probably need several freelancers.

* Lack of code review. Usually an agency will have several devs on their team, so there should be some form of code review whereas this is less likely with a single freelancer.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#647

Post by [deleted] »

latortuga wrote: post #169
deltarholamda wrote: post #89

You know how, during a big programming project, you have to keep the devs from going "this codebase has a lot of technical debt, let's rebuild the whole thing using Rust and Kubernetes and Deno and move the hosting to Azure and switch databases and use microservices and..."? Designers are exactly the same way. Just as technical fiddling is fun and interesting, making new designs from scratch is just as fun and intere…

I was ready to fire the agency the moment the author mentioned they were going off script and building whatever they wanted. This was a huge, blinking red flag for me. Why would you keep paying someone when they're doing work you didn't ask for, doing work that doesn't align with your goals, and ignoring what you say?

[deleted]

Re: I regret my website redesign

#648

Post by rob74 »

lelanthran wrote: post #639
doctor_eval wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agile and scrum are in practice such nebulous terms that while I don’t doubt that you have had good experience with the particular version of these concepts that you yourself use, the agency could well consider itself to be using the same concepts - yet here we are. The older I get, the more I come to understand that the problem with projects is people, not methodology. 30% of IT projects still fail, despite “agile”…

> 30% of IT projects still fail, despite “agile” now being widespread. That's a very optimistic statistic, unless "fail" is defined to be something other than "the opposite of success". IOW, a fail is any project that goes over time, over budget or delivers under scope. If you're defining success as "well, we delivered eventually, and we delivered 80% of the requirements, and it only went over budget by 20%", then, s…

Ok, by that measure I guess over 90% of projects would fail. Which would probably be unfair in most cases, because unlike this project, where the scope as defined by the client was 100% clear from the start, most clients when starting out with a project can't really say exactly what they want, so the scope creep is not only driven by the agency, but also (sometimes mostly) by the client.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#649

Post by rewgs »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #609

Serif -> Cliche San Serif, CHECK! Quirky Original Graphics -> Corporate Memphis, CHECK! Distinctive Colours -> Generic Shades of #0000FF, CHECK! Crisp Headline -> Something Generic, CHECK! Sharp image of distinctive looking device, makes you curious, looks like a unit! -> Generic Graphics, CHECK! And more... They ruined it! What a shame it was so good, so perfect before. The redeeming thing about the new design, if a…

When I say the redesign I audibly groaned. Just another bland, featureless, nothing website. While I certainly don't agree that the old one was "perfect," it at least had some sort of character.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#650

Post by sizzle »

bequanna wrote: post #492
allenu wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "well thought out con" is a little strong here. I see it as more likely the consulting firm has learned this behavior over time and it has rewarded them well. I imagine that if they're normally dealing with large contracts, those companies footing the bill are probably easier to string along like this. Just do enough and promise enough that they keep you on and only budge when they get more serious about potent…

I don’t buy this was some mistake in good faith. I think the author is a little naive which made him a good mark. They started work on and subsequently billed for something that was explicitly out of scope. My guess is that the founder of the agency knew early on that he could push this client around to extract $.

Also they finished the work in a brisk sprint-like pace towards the end, knocking out the pages in record time. I think that was more indicative of the actual effort required to finish the work, not all the hours they billed. There is a perverse incentive when the client has a retainer to bill hours and make up excuses to line their pockets. They finessed the author and preyed on his naivety
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