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GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
lmoelleb20-Jan-22 20:55
lmoelleb20-Jan-22 20:55 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
obermd19-Jan-22 5:17
obermd19-Jan-22 5:17 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:11
professionalSander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:11 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Richard Andrew x6419-Jan-22 5:24
professionalRichard Andrew x6419-Jan-22 5:24 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:11
professionalSander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:11 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Daniel Pfeffer19-Jan-22 5:25
professionalDaniel Pfeffer19-Jan-22 5:25 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:10
professionalSander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:10 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
DerekT-P19-Jan-22 6:24
professionalDerekT-P19-Jan-22 6:24 
Good to see this discussion, and particularly that there are plenty of (other) folk out there who "just get on with it". I think the key is absolutely the number of people involved, even if they're not directly developers, but maybe sys admins etc. Currently I've active projects for three different clients, and juggling priorities on a daily basis between them. (All the while trying to keep my hours down as I'm nominally retired and SWMBO expects me to be available for walks / shopping / chores at home!)

My "planning" process is essentially a notepad file per client of high-level requests. I charge for "reactive" stuff by the hour (e.g. 1st line support, urgent fixes) and for new features on a fixed-price basis. The fixed-price stuff means that I have effectively drawn a line around how much is going to change and how long I should be spending on it. Where I know that these mini-projects have an interdependency (e.g. they involve changes to the same module) I'll combine them and quote for the combination. Because I've been the sole "IT person" working with these clients for an average of 5 years, I know their businesses very well and am (almost) integrated into their staff. That means that, while ultimately they set the priorities and authorise work, I'm in a position where I know the impact of changes and can give a good steer as to what is going to have the most positive impact per £ of my time on their business. I can back that recommendation up and 95% of the time they are happy to go with it. Of course new requirements come into the business, often driven by specific customers, but I can assimilate the pros and cons of changes very quickly and suggest changes to schedules to accommodate. As far as my clients are concerned, they're each my primary focus. I try to make sure that work for one never adversely impacts projects for another. If it looks like there may be a clash coming up, I ask one of them a difficult question that needs a decision; that usually delays things for a couple of weeks!

Because it's "just me" and the projects are big but not massive, I can internalise all the pending changes and understand what the dependencies are. If it were a bigger project with a bigger team, that probably wouldn't be possible and we'd need to plan it all out in much more detail.

Before going freelance (some 30 years ago now! OMG | :OMG: ), I was in a role called "Design Authority" which involved co-ordinating all the various development projects of a fair-sized corporation. My job was to make sure that things didn't clash, that we weren't re-inventing the wheel, that we were using common standards and terminology, consistent UIs and so on. It was sort of meta-project management but even there, because I was working mainly at the conceptual level, there was no need for a formal methodology. The individual projects used their own management structures and tools and effectively I was there as a source of "best practice" but also assisting in cross-project communication and knowledge sharing. Looking back, it should have been a really fun role but I was too inexperienced at the time and didn't make the most of it. The company went bust - nothing to do with the IT processes, they'd insured a North Sea drilling platform that exploded, and they couldn't pay the resulting claims. Frown | :(
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:07
professionalSander Rossel19-Jan-22 23:07 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Nemanja Trifunovic19-Jan-22 6:32
Nemanja Trifunovic19-Jan-22 6:32 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel19-Jan-22 22:58
professionalSander Rossel19-Jan-22 22:58 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
DerekT-P20-Jan-22 0:14
professionalDerekT-P20-Jan-22 0:14 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Gerry Schmitz19-Jan-22 7:41
mveGerry Schmitz19-Jan-22 7:41 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel19-Jan-22 22:52
professionalSander Rossel19-Jan-22 22:52 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
DerekT-P20-Jan-22 0:24
professionalDerekT-P20-Jan-22 0:24 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel20-Jan-22 0:28
professionalSander Rossel20-Jan-22 0:28 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Gerry Schmitz20-Jan-22 10:50
mveGerry Schmitz20-Jan-22 10:50 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel20-Jan-22 23:19
professionalSander Rossel20-Jan-22 23:19 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Randor 19-Jan-22 8:24
professional Randor 19-Jan-22 8:24 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Greg Utas19-Jan-22 9:20
professionalGreg Utas19-Jan-22 9:20 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Randor 19-Jan-22 9:52
professional Randor 19-Jan-22 9:52 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Greg Utas19-Jan-22 11:11
professionalGreg Utas19-Jan-22 11:11 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Randor 19-Jan-22 11:31
professional Randor 19-Jan-22 11:31 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
Sander Rossel19-Jan-22 22:51
professionalSander Rossel19-Jan-22 22:51 
GeneralRe: Structured, yes or no? Pin
DerekT-P20-Jan-22 0:58
professionalDerekT-P20-Jan-22 0:58 

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