Maximising Value from Web Development Services: A Guide
Edward WongHead of Strategy
With over 20 years in the software development industry in both technical and leadership roles, Edward brings a wealth of experience to the 4mation team.
He is passionate about helping people succeed and empowering people to step up and show how awesome they can be.
Whether you’re a seasoned user of web development services or have recently engaged with a provider, understanding how to extract maximum value is crucial. This is especially true for Australian businesses looking to justify the investment and optimise their ROI. Here, we delve into four ways you can enhance the value derived from your chosen website development services.
1. The Art of Salesmanship in Web Development Services
Contrary to popular belief, great salesmanship is a desirable trait in your web development team. Top-tier salespeople in the world of web development services don’t push unnecessary solutions. Instead, they actively listen, empathise, and craft custom solutions that address your unique challenges.
The Canadian Professional Sales Association highlights empathy, focus, and responsibility as the top three characteristics of good salespeople. These qualities drive them to help you achieve excellent outcomes, creating a win-win scenario. So, when interacting with your website development services provider, look for these elements of great salesmanship. Are they actively listening? Do they ask questions that help you, as well as themselves? If they’re lacking, consider recommending a sales training course to enhance their active listening skills and comprehension of your needs.
2. The Element of Good Surprises
In the context of web development services, surprises are generally unwelcome unless they’re positive. Can you recall the last time your team finished something ahead of schedule, provided an unexpected insight, or even surprised you with a gift? If not, this could indicate a more transactional than transformational relationship.
To foster proactivity, initiate a brainstorming session with your team. Ask questions like, “Is there a better way to do this?” or “What’s an interesting trend you’ve noticed recently?” This could lead to discussions about new technologies that could be applied to your projects.
3. Transparency in Web Development Services
Just because teams have expert developers doesn’t mean they’re experts at developing everything. There are over 700 programming languages and over 20 languages used by professional developers.
Good teams want to manage risk as much as possible – one of the major reasons for Agile development. A promising sign of good development practice, irrespective of language, is rapid prototyping.
A great way to do this is to conduct a short, controlled experiment or develop a small-scale model that helps identify major unknowns that are likely to become issues. Then, teams can extrapolate the results and learnings to understand how long a project will take and what other risks you may face.
If teams ask you to spend time rapid prototyping, it’s usually a good idea to consider it – it’s not a waste of time or money.
Here’s an example:
You ask to develop a business model that drives a decision-making process. It needs to calculate across many different data points, collate other sets of data and flag possible issues to look into.
A development team might:
- Design the model
- Document expected inputs and outputs
- Create user stories
This is all proper procedure and has its place. However, what will happen with this approach, is that the model will be developed without necessarily understanding what issues might affect the output – or even worse, what “good” output looks like.
The solution to this is to model the inputs, business logic and output in excel – and use this as your source of truth for quality assurance. Then, you will quickly understand whether there is a hole in your logic and fix it, all before any code is written.
4. Business Understanding in Web Development Services
It’s common for website development services providers to inquire about your direct business. However, it’s one thing to discuss your business operations; it’s another for them to experience it firsthand. Inviting your website development team to experience your business environment can provide them with a deeper understanding of your operations. They might even identify opportunities for efficiency improvements that could have a significant impact on your business.
If you feel like you are not getting the most out of your website development agency, contact us today for a free consultation.
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