General Consultant Discussion

Does anyone have any project plan documents that you would be willing to share? I'm looking for documents that can be used to help plan and manage a new customer engagement/project.

Karen I do most of mine in Basecamp and in many cases there customer is unique enough that I wind up creating a unique plan each time.

Wayne, that's exactly what I'm struggling with. Thanks for the recommendation for Basecamp. I'll check it out.

I do some very broad templating -- typically with documents to hold: - Contact info - Keys - Server login - Scope I'm presently wrestling with upgrades that seemt on to stretch on forever mostly due to the user not being prepared, able to check the data, etc. @JerryNorman had a great suggestion during MOTM that you incorporate language that says after xx days if customer has not raised an issue the upgrade is deemed complete and accepted.

The review default definitely gets their attention. If you use it, you must also have a clearly defined penalty. So, not only is it accepted ""after X business days"", but clearly state that support after that is extra. You can consider a ""$450 charge"" reopen the issue for diagnosis, and repair (the ""prescription"") might cost more beyond that fee. Do recognize this approach ONLY works if the project is completely prepaid. (We often break payment in two, with the final portion to be received BEFORE we do the final migration.) We also use 3-level proposals. The length of time before we default to ""accepted"" is short on the cheap one and longer on the premium one. This, alone, seems to be a pretty effective lever to push them to the more expensive choice.