BKeeney Briefs

Happy New Year everyone!  This time of year is an awesome time to review the previous year and make plans for the upcoming one.

Many of us charge clients by the hour regardless if we tell them that or not.  In a fixed bid project we estimate how long it will take to do the various parts of the project and then give the client a value based on those hourly estimates.

Reliable and accurate estimates are just the first step in making your business profitable.  The final step is going back and seeing if you estimated properly.  The only way to do this is to track your time on a project by project basis.

There are variety of tools available for doing this, but Task Timer, one of our products, is a very simple and inexpensive ($24.95) way of doing this.  Task Timer is designed to be simple and easy to use.  It’s as simple as pressing a button!

Setting up Task Timer isn’t much harder.  Add your project, add the major tasks you want to track, and add your initial estimates and start using it.  The new built-in estimate graphing gives you a minute by minute graphical view into how you’re estimate is tracking in comparison to your actual time spent.

For many of our consulting clients we give them a discount rate when they pre-purchase a block of hours (usually 40 hours).  Task Timer’s new estimates feature makes tracking the hours used really easy.  When the client purchases a new block of hours simply create a new task for the project and put the block of hours into the estimate field.  Task Timer is now tracking your bulk hours used for the client!

Many people who have purchased Task Timer have told us that it pays for itself in the first week!  We can’t verify their claims but we can say that when we created Task Timer and started implementing it for all of our projects we found that our billable hours rose over 15%.  It seems we were not very accurate reporting how much we worked on any particular project at the end of the day.  If we reported (really guestimated) our hours at the end of the week the numbers were even worse!

For additional information about Task Timer, please see this link:  http://www.bkeeney.com/products/tasktimer4

Download links:

Mac OS X:  http://www.bkeeney.com/downloads/macintoshdownloads/download/36-tasktimer

Windows:  http://www.bkeeney.com/downloads/download/38-tasktimer

Tracking your time is a good reality check.  Were those products you were spending so much time on really worth it?  How much time are your blogging?  What about video production for those training videos?  For that big size month project what did you get right (and more importantly wrong) in your estimates?

Plan on getting a handle on your estimating skills in 2010.  Task Timer is just one of the tools you can use.

I was reviewing this years client list and the work we’ve done this year.  We have a lot to be thankful for and we really appreciate their business and like to send them a small token of appreciation during the holiday season.  We hope they come back for more work and the gift, trivial really, is just a way of saying thanks.

I started thinking about our clients.  With the exception of a handful, most of them are not in the Kansas City area.  Heck, most of them aren’t even in the Midwest.  So what this means is that we never see our clients in a face-to-face meeting and have to rely upon phone calls (both traditional and via Skype), emails, instant messages, and the occasional screen share or video conference.

This makes managing a project harder in my opinion.  There is so much information that gets passed when you’re sitting across from a person that you’d be hard pressed to write it all down.  It’s hard to get that same level of info electronically.

I get a chuckle when I hear about companies looking to offshore their development work to developers in developing countries.  Sure, it’s possible and you might be able to save some money but there’s a hidden cost.

In an Cutter Consortium survey Link over 20 years and 8000 projects they found that offshore projects reduced the cost of projects to $3.2 million versus the $3.5 million it typically cost by doing it on-shore.  From a time perspective the on-shore project took 12.6 months and the offshore took 9.6 months.

The real kicker is that the defect rates for offshore projects were an incredible 7565 versus the 2702 for onshore projects.  So even though the offshore project cost less and took less time, the company had to fix nearly three times more defects.  In the long run I’m not sure the offshore projects saved anything.

In the same study Agile methodology came out looking like a winner.  The average agile project took 7.8 months with a cost of $2.2 milling with a defect rate of 1372.

Last summer we worked on an agile project.  It takes some time getting used to but after the initial learning curve the project went very fast and the client was very happy with the results.  If you have a big project you should probably think about using agile.

I apologize for digressing from the main topic.  Certainly one of the of biggest challenges with a long-distance client is communication.  I suspect this is why the offshore projects have higher defect rates.  Everything needs to be written down and communicated – mostly via email.  Throw in cultural and language differences and you have a recipe for misunderstandings (if not outright disasters).

A couple of things that I’ve learned is that the communication skill of each client is different.  Some can handle an email with a list of questions.  Others can’t so you end up with single point emails.  Email management is a must!

We use a bug tracking system and encourage our clients to log in and use it.  Most get it and love being able to track what’s been fixed and what hasn’t.  Others just won’t use it (despite regular prodding) and resort to emails.  Depending upon the size of the project, it might just be easier to transcribe those emails into your bug tracking system.

Long-distance clients need special attention.  They need reassurance that you are really working on their project.  For some clients we do a 3P report where we report on Progress, Problems and give the Plan for the upcoming week (sounds sort of agile, no?).  With the web becoming an integral part of our lives and business, learning how to work with clients from anywhere in the world is an important skill.

How do you deal with long-distance clients?  Do you try to have a face-to-face meeting with them?  Do you think you do anything special for your clients?

It seems appropriate during this week of Thanksgiving to give a big thank you to all the readers.  So a big, hearty, “Thank You!” for asking questions and providing some interesting feedback.

Whenever I start talking to REALbasic developers, I get asked, a lot, about finding REALbasic consulting work.  It’s not hard finding work, but it is not always easy finding good projects.

The difference?  One issue that comes up is that because it’s real and it’s basic means REALbasic it must be easy-to-use (read that as cheap), right?  Wrong!  Making a good quality REALbasic application requires some perseverance and some experience.  I can guarantee that the RB apps I make these days are way better than my early RB apps.  Experience counts in software development just like in any other profession.

Good projects aren’t always available.  Maybe you have to do an ugly project for next to nothing to hold you over until a bigger, better project comes along.  With consulting it really is a ‘what is the next project?’ world.

So where do you find work?  The first thing you have to do is set up shop.  Does your website say anything about REALbasic consulting and/or development?  It should because that’s the first way people are going to find you.  You should also have a previous projects page that talks about the work you’ve done.  Sometimes you can’t talk about a project in a lot of detail due to non-disclosure agreements, but you can talk generically about the type of work you’ve done.

In a recent ARBP survey word of mouth and their website were the two highest percentages, by far, of any of the topics.

Do you self promote yourself in the RB Forums and the NUG list?  If not, you might be missing out on some work.  By answering some questions on the forums and NUG (for free) you can get some free exposure and people get to know your name.  Do you think it’s a coincidence that regular columnists/writers for RB Developer magazine are mostly consultants?

Are you listed in the ARBP consultants list?  You should be.  It costs nothing other than signing up for their limited membership (i.e. free).

Finally, the REAL Software Consulting Referrals Program is a great way of getting leads.  People who think they want a REALbasic developer to contact them fill out a web form and you get an email.  It’s then up to you follow up on the lead.  It is somewhat pricey at $1000/year but one good project and will pay for itself.

In fact, I would call the program a bargain.  In 2008 REAL Software changed the program and nearly doubled the price to be part of the program.  I criticized them at the time and still think it was a bit heavy-handed but the quality of the leads has gone up and so has the frequency of leads.  I contact most of the leads twice.  First when I first get the lead and in a couple of weeks afterward.  Most of the time they tell me they only have one or two replies to their original post so this says to me that there are not a whole lot of people in the program.

Look folks, if they’re filling out a form asking for REALbasic work they’ve already sold themselves on using REALbasic.  You don’t have to sell the merits of RB – they’ve self-selected themselves!  It’s like shooting fish in a barrel from a sales perspective.

Do you talk about what you do?  You should because you never know who you’re talking to.  I went to an NFL training camp this summer and while having a drink at a bar where the players sometimes hang out I had a great conversation with someone that happened to work in software industry.  While it hasn’t resulted in any work – yet – it might in the future and isn’t that what marketing is all about?

So that’s it.  There’s no secret to finding REALbasic work.  Have a great Thanksgiving and happy coding!

It’s been a while since I’ve given an update on our marketing.  Very early on we decided to start integrating social media into our portfolio.  As you’ve probably seen, we’re now active on Linked-In, FaceBook, and Twitter to name a few (the person doing our marketing is probably on a dozen more and, really, I don’t want to know all of them).  Part of our routine when announcing updates is to make sure we post on all of them as well.

I’ll be honest that I was a bit skeptical at first.  Maybe I’m just old enough to not ‘get it’.  I understand the importance of search rankings and all that but the social media thing has been somewhat of a mystery.

One of the first things we installed on our various websites was Google Analytics and I must admit that I get a kick out of seeing where people are coming from and what they’re search for.  Google Analytics is why I know people are coming from the social media sites.  I find it fascinating that some relatively obscure comment or article is drawing people.  As they say, the more eyes that see your product the better chance they’ll at least try it.  Leading them to your website is at least half the battle.

Since we’re heavily into Mac OS X software it comes as no surprise that a lot of referral traffic comes from MacUpdate www.macupdate.com and Version Tracker www.versiontracker.com.  Windows traffic isn’t nearly as clear cut and we’re working on how to get better exposure on that platform.  It’s obvious that the users of the two platforms research and consume their software differently.

I’ve heard some of the buzz about Woopra but I’ll wait a little bit before delving into it.  If you have any first hand experience with it I’d love to hear about it.  What is its strength and is it really useful for a small business like us?

The other thing we’re doing is making sure we get our press releases out.  I hate doing them myself because I have enough stuff on my plate as it is (and marketing speak is anathema to an engineer).  I’m glad to have turned that responsibility over to someone who likes doing them (at least more than me).  We are using prMac http://prmac.com/ and it is obviously making a difference because of its distribution network.  I find links from all over the internet based on the press releases.

Certainly one of the issues we struggle with is finding the time to do it all.  We’re lucky, to some extent, by having multiple employees who can do a bit of everything.  We hired a part time marketing person to help us out with all this stuff.  I know a lot of you don’t have that luxury.  How do you find the time for marketing?  Do you have any marketing tips for the small, independent software developer?

I had a brief conversation with another REALbasic consultant the other day. We both remarked on how often the consulting inquiries never go anywhere. I would say that it’s price but half the time they never even bother to reply after the initial contact.

I’ve even found that potential clients that post on the REALbasic Developers list and the ARBP Find a Developer page never respond to emails. It seems odd especially when I know many of the people that post on those two sites don’t get any responses from developers to begin with! I know this because after a couple of months I’ll do a very short “Hey, have you found an RB developer yet,” email to those I don’t initially respond to and I get a response more often then not saying how the response was poor by RB developers. Go figure.

Well, to be fair to us RB developers, sometimes the specs are worded pretty poorly or are so specific that unless you know exactly what they’re asking for we don’t respond. Other times they’re so broadly worded that the project could mean anything or they’re lacking so many details you start to wonder if they really know what they want. One project that went through the network had a 20 page requirements document. Awesome, I thought, finally someone that knows what they want. Unfortunately, it only had a single page of what their current system is and does and nothing in regards to database details, screenshots, or anything else really helpful. In other words it was 20 pages of technical jargon that didn’t mean anything to a typical REALbasic application (which they were pretty sure they wanted).

A few years ago I used to have these nice formal proposals that I used for everything. These multi-page documents, contracts really, took me about a half day to customize for each project. After a few years of wasting time writing documents I now just send a summary email now because most people aren’t very serious about getting their project done. Let me revise that statement: They’ve not very serious unless it’s going to be dirt cheap.

So what has your experience been? Why do you think clients don’t bother to respond? Have you found the RB developer networks to be useful or not?

The July/August 2009 edition of REALbasic Developer magazine is out.  In this edition my column is about competing on price and why it’s a bad idea to complete solely on price.

What did I get right and what did I get wrong?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but requests for quotes for REALbasic projects has been through the roof the past couple of weeks.  Between the REALbasic Developer Network (i.e. the Find a Consultant web page) and the ARBP Find a Developer web page it sure has been busy.  I can only find one “help me learn REALbasic” post in the past month or so.  This is a good thing since there used to be a bunch of them.

I don’t know if  RS marketing efforts are leading to these requests or if the ever-increasing Macintosh presense in the business world is making more people want cross-platform applications but something seems to have changed.  (Or it’s a combination of everything!)  Of course there’s nothing to say if the requests dry up in the next month or so.  Only time will tell.

I find it interesting that a lot of the recent projects are converting from either FileMaker or 4D.  RB can make a nice database application (assuming you know what you’re doing).  RS is always looking to enhance the user experience and I encourage RS to enhance their database tools.  I, however, do not want them to become another FileMaker or 4D because a generic application environment can do things better than a database-centric application, in my opinion.  Likewise there are things that FileMaker, 4D and MS Access do better than a generic application environment like RB.  It depends upon the requirements, in the long run.

Since I help run ARBP you can take this criticism with a grain of salt.  One of my biggest beefs with the RS developer program is that it’s simply a forwarded email.  If you signed up today you’d miss everything from last week (if you did sign up I’d certainly ask for all recent posts since $1k is nice chunk of change).  With ARBP we keep them around for a while (which is a problem all by itself that I’m trying to correct).  Another point is there isn’t a whole lot of information in the posts.  A contact information (name, email, phone) and a brief description of the project.  It would be nice to get more information.  What platforms?  Is it an existing project?  Is it a conversion project?  From what language?  Is it commercial or internal software?  I could probably continue on what I’d like to see, but I’d be repeating myself.

As a consultant, are you busy?  Better yet, are you as busy as you’d like to be?  Have you seen any trends in the past six months?

One of the things that’s tough as a small business owner is getting away from work.  Heck, even if you’re not ‘working’ you’re thinking about work and stressed about work or the lack thereof or any one of a million things.  So it’s important to get away every now and then.

I know that a lot of my peers aren’t this lucky, but I have an employee that can handle a lot of stuff while I’m gone.  We put that to the test this past week and a half as the family took an Alaskan cruise.  Traveling can be stressful in its own right but I’ve discovered a couple of things about cruises:  if you are hungry or bored you’re doing it intentionally.

Our cruise ports were Seattle, Ketchikan, fjording, Juneau, Skagway, Victoria and finally back to Seattle.  We had three cameras, one video recorder and two iPhones.  Without even looking at the video we have over 1500 pictures from 10 days.  This does not include any that my brother-in-law and his family took.  I think I might have to cull it down a bit to fit it on to the iMovie DVD tradition. 

The weather was perfect the entire time.  No rain at all – which had some of the Alaskan’s concerned (because the new Walmart had run out of hoses).  I enjoyed Seattle far more than I expected.  The Science Fiction Hall of Fame was cool (the gift shop sucked).  The Glass Museum in Tacoma was pretty cool as well though the real highlight was taking the bridge across the highway with all the Don Chiluhy samples.

Without a doubt the wildlife and scenery were the highlights of the Alaskan trip.  I can honestly say, though, that I’m done with ‘pretty mountains with snow’ for a while.  We saw a couple of glaciers but didn’t see any calving.  Oh well, the bald Eagles, whales and the bear cub made up for it.

I’m writing this after a hectic day of catching up on emails that my employee couldn’t deal with and doing all the things to catch up on news in the tech world.  It was a busy week with all of the Apple announcements.  Being disconnected from the internet left me feeling ‘disconnected’ but that in itself is a very good thing because I needed it – it had been well over a year since I took any significant time off.

I feel refreshed (though tired) and ready to get back into multiple projects.  My employee handled the minor situations that came up with absolutely no issues and now he’s ready to go on his vacation.  It seems that there are a half-dozen projects that are very close to happening which means we’ll be crazy busy for a while.  But that’s okay.  Being disconnected for a while has restored my sense of balance.  You should try it sometime.

It’s been an interesting six weeks as our kitchen has been remodeled.  Thankfully we’re within days of getting our kitchen back and can finally do some hosting.  The person doing the remodeling has done an awesome job and we’ve had many discussions on being in business.  It’s funny because our discussions mirror what I have with software developers that have their own business.  I suspect that most business owners have the same sorts of problems.

One topic that comes up over and over again is pricing.  Our remodeler gave up trying to compete solely on price long ago because there’s always someone new to the profession that wants to get their foot in the door.  Either that or they really have no idea what their time is worth.  Don’t forget that you should always be aware of what your real costs are because whatever your hourly rate is it should take into account tools and equipment, all forms of taxes, training time, vacation time, sick time, insurance,  and your retirement.  Also you need to plan on NOT having work for a period of time.  All of these factors increase your rate.

The question of having or not having employees seems to be a tricky one.  I’ve always maintained that I want employees smarter than me (depending on who you ask that might not be hard, but I digress….) because I don’t want to babysit and have to explain everything and make all the decisions.  In fact, I’d like to learn a few things from my employees.  The argument can be made that I’m training my potential competitors and that may be true but so far that has not happened and I refuse to live in fear of that.

I’ve been in business long enough to realize that it takes a special person to own and run a business.  There is no day off and you just don’t stop thinking about work at 5:00 PM and restart thinking about it at 8:00 AM the next day or on Monday.  It just doesn’t work that way and anyone who’s going to start their own business based on that belief should just stop right now.  Sure I have the flexibility to go to the gym at 1 in the afternoon, but does that make up for answering tech support emails at 11:30 at night?  Only you can make the determination as a business owner.

Do you have a plan for your business or are you ‘going with the flow’?  I look at it this way:  Do you have a job or do you run a business?  A job is something you go to every day to pay the bills.  A business is something that you manage and plan on growing into something bigger than it is right now.  So whatever plans you have, write them down.  Once you right them down you can start acting on them.

What are your plans for 6 months from now?  A year?  Do you plan on hiring any additional staff?  Do you have plans for new products or updates to existing ones?

These are all questions you need to ask yourself when you’re managing your business.  If you’re not, you might just have a job.

Estimates aren’t very easy.  In fact, I’d say that it’s the hardest part of being a consultant because of the time and effort that goes into making a decent estimate.  It’s really just an educated guess.

Think about it for a second.  You’re being asked to figure out how much time and money it will take do something without actually doing the work.  And in most cases a client has given you a vague, rough idea of what they want.  If you’re lucky.

If you’re unlucky, the client has an OPC (Other Peoples Code) project that they’re bringing to you to fix.  What’s even worse, they give you a paragraph of what the application does, with no specifics, and expect it to be done quickly and cheaply and correctly.

The other thing that sucks about estimates is knowing that we humans are notoriously bad at determining how much time something will take.  We’re good at estimating a lot of things but time estimates are ephemeral at best.  I started my career as an electrical engineering doing project engineering work.  It only took a few small projects (and getting chewed out when my estimates were horrible) to realize that my ‘it only takes a day to do that’ estimate turned into three days (or more).

So I have my multiply by three rule.  Take your estimate, which is really the ‘if everything works perfectly the first time and I can devote 100% of my day to it’ estimate and then multiply by your reality factor.

The real trick is learning from your past successes and mistakes.  Now that I have a standard tool set of classes, controls and modules that I’ve used on a dozens of projects it’s easy to say that adding ‘X’ is 15 minutes worth of work and the reality factor is 1.5.  Creating new controls, since it has a high degree of initial failure, might have a reality factor of 2 to 3.  If you have a feeling that a client is going to be really picky, maybe that reality factor goes up a little.  If the project requirement details are scarce the factor goes up again.

Trust your gut on this one folks.  The figure at the bottom of the spreadsheet seems high sometimes.  You’ll be tempted to lower some estimates to make it more palatable to the client.  Sometimes you might have to do that to get the job, but try to resist the temptation.  As a consultant your pricing is based on what your time and experience are worth along with all the other things that go into being a business.  You have overhead, marketing, taxes, insurance, and you have a retirement plan, right?

So what’s your Reality Factor?