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What every Project
manager should know about posting and awarding projects. "Insider's
secrets"
Projects at E-guru.in
E-guru, as we know it, is providing for businesses
to outsource and post projects keeping the Indian talent and
skill-set in mind. Our staff and offices are based in India
and we leave no stone unturned to provide our clients from
all over the world with a round-the-clock and world-class
service of hosting their projects for competitive bidding
from the best of India's talent pool. These projects range
from copy writing and a simple logo design to hardcore programming
like C/C++, Java, .NET and software development!
If I had told you even a decade ago that you
could hire, right from the comforts of your office, competent
professionals in say Marketing, Multi-media, PHP, Perl/CGI,
CMS, Python, Visual Basic, Flash, Ajax, SEO, Script installation,
network security, so on and so forth, and not just hire them
but you also get to choose one out the many that will be lining
up for your business and then you can have your chosen one
work for you from his distant office at much cheaper rates
without you having to pay any benefits and taxes- all this
would have sounded like a fairy tale to you. But thanks to
technology, a myth of the past has become the trend of the
present and a harbinger of the future corporate. Going by
the rapid strides in technology and its swift assimilation
in our daily domestic as well as business lives, I reckon,
in another ten years or so, the intrinsic structure of businesses
in the future might even become unrecognizable from that of
their monolithic contemporaries.
Looking ahead, outsourcing through a web-based
platform is the way to go for a business geared for the future.
It is obviously much cheaper, more convenient and hassle-free
vis-à-vis the harrowing physical office-based scenario
where you hire, train, monitor, pay the maximum you can and
still end-up all stressed out as the deadlines approach.
Your project being posted conspicuously at a
one-stop site for all the Indian freelancers, the competitive
bidding that goes on amongst the freelancers themselves for
your project, the in-built security mechanisms of the website-
all go together to ensure that a business, be it from India
or any remote corner of the world, would get the best of talent
for their needs, with the best prices for their pockets and
the best of office experience for a stress-buster. No wonder
the web-mode of doing business is becoming ever-popular. Consequently,
with outsourcing becoming the most preferred business strategy
in recent times, several small and big businesses have reaped
huge benefits in terms of costs, quality and speed.
But it is not as easy as it sounds. Not all
projects are carried out to their successful completion for
various reasons; a few get mired in disputes, bad communication
being the show-spoiler in most such cases. How to avoid these
pitfalls and ensure that your project achieves the success
it deserves? This is the major question we are going to discuss
in the following lines.
Freelancers at E-guru.in
Freelancers are having new projects posted everyday
and so they too have lots of choices. A freelancer wouldn't
take up more projects than he can handle at a time. So, the
best freelancers stay mostly busy with their preferred projects
as they are easily awarded one on the basis of their experience
and merit. The newbie builds his/her experience slowly either
by collaborating with the ones who are more experienced or
just by learning over time.
And hence, the stream keeps flowing; the new
ones keep coming, becoming a part of the flow. There's a deluge
of bids at projects that have a value to the freelancers from
a career as well as monetary perspective. Such coveted projects
are the ones that attract the best talent in any field. With
all the best performers bidding for such a project, there's
no chance that the project would go unawarded or would fail
to give satisfactory results to the project manager.
What goes into the making of a successful project?
A project can be certified as successful only
when the project manager is satisfied and happy with the end-result!
Success of a project is established in six consecutive steps:
1) You have a clear and realistic set of expectations from
posting the project
2) You prepare your text for posting accordingly and post
the project
3) The project attracts the kind of freelancers it needs
4) The most deserving freelancer wins the project
5) The project is completed under the supervision of the project
manager in time.
6) The end-result is a quality product.
Each step must be executed successfully in order
for the next step to occur. Hence, starting from the first
step, it's a chain which leads the project manager to his
goal. Since, the strength of each link of the chain determines
the overall strength of the chain, let us discuss, starting
from the first step, what goes in to the making of a successful
project.
What are you fishing for?
Before a project manager posts a project, he
must analyze his own requirements carefully. Posting a project
should not be viewed as an end in itself. It is rather a means
to the end of being able to select the freelancer you need.
Ask yourself a few questions: What exactly do
you need? And what kind of a professional would suit you best?
Is it a routine and standardized job that requires medium
level proficiency or is it something that needs experienced
hands? What are your time constraints? Understand the whole
process of your project thoroughly. Then sit down to analyze
what you are looking at here. What are the fair costs for
all these requirements? Are you prepared to incur this cost?
Answer these questions for yourself and finally settle on
a realistic set of expectations. Now, based on these criteria,
frame your own approach and goals of posting the project.
How to post a Project?
Next follows the action of posting. The real question here
is how to make a good and effective posting?
A posting is good and effective when it serves
its purpose of attracting your targeted freelancers and has
enough details for the freelancers to make an informed bid
on the whole project. So, you've got some work to do here!
After all, your posting is going to speak on your behalf.
For your convenience, E-guru provides you with
various options like - you can choose to post a featured project
for giving it greater exposure among the freelancers as well
as to enable you direct contact with the bidders, you can
post a private project and invite only the best freelancers
for bidding, you can post an urgent project, you can upload
relevant files for the reference of the bidders or you can
hide the project bids to attract only serious contenders and
so on. You can click on the relevant tabs on the site for
more details on the features on offer.
Now let's focus on the content your posting
would carry. Your posting must communicate clearly and effectively.
So, the content should be lucid, to the point and easy to
read and understand. Typically a good and effective posting
covers the following areas:
· Your introduction (Usually, this portion
is skipped by most managers. Or, this could be short and terse.
Alternatively, you can also give your posting a distinct personal
touch e.g. "Hi, I am Steven. I run a S/W development
firm and I needed some extra help in programming for our latest
product." A project manager can choose as per his/her
individual approach and preferences.)
· Job type (Here, you mention the basic
skill-set needed to carry out the job. e.g. C/C++, SQL, Graphic
design etc.)
· What needs to be done? (You talk about
the job here e.g. "We need a website to be designed and
developed" or "We need assistance in system admin.
of win2k server")
· Necessary job specifications (You give
details about the job aspects. e.g. "we need you to handle
x, develop y and create z as a part of the project."
The purpose is to give the bidders a clear idea about all
the work involved in the project so that they make an informed
bid. Here you can also make an attempt at attracting a certain
set of freelancers like writers aspiring to be editors or
networking professionals looking for more projects in network
security e.g. you can mention your target group and address
how your project would look good on their resume)
· What are your time constraints? (You
can mention your expected time for project completion. Try
to keep a reasonable time-frame since that would translate
into a better quality for you. Sometimes, one might need a
project, which usually has a one week completion time, to
be ready in four days. Do mention if it is so. This would
give the bidders a fair idea about the time and labor it would
need from them. So, they can estimate their bid for the project
accordingly.)
· What is your estimated budget? (Here,
you quote a tentative price you are ready to pay for the said
services which should ideally take in to account the skill
set and expertise you are asking for, as well as the time
and labor needed. You can specify the exact price or mention
a range. Sometimes, the project managers mention ridiculously
low prices or entirely skip any mention, in anticipation that
this would lead to greater cost savings but that could translate
in to a shoddy service as well. So, one should not hesitate
to pay the deserved price. Outsourcing as well as competitive
bidding is already lowering your costs a great deal.)
· What should a freelancer bid at? (In
case you have opted for a featured project, you can ask the
bidders to make an indicative bid and you can negotiate the
prices at the later stages. You can also state "Please
make a bid for five articles per day." Or "Please
bid for two assignments every week." Otherwise, for a
normal project, you should make available enough details for
the freelancers to bid for the whole project, as suggested
above. You can choose an option based on what works best for
you.)
· What else do you need in a qualified
freelancer? (Since you've already mentioned the skill set
and the job details, you can skip this part or you can mention
other lateral competencies you expect in a prospective bidder.
This will vary from project to project. Basically, this only
goes to suggest what set of freelancers are encouraged to
bid on your project! E.g. "I would appreciate if the
bidder has above average communication skills" or "It
would help his case if the bidder has the basic knowledge
of x beside the above mentioned skill set." Or "A
professional with four or more years of experience in the
field would be preferred.")
· What would it take for a bidder to
make the cut? (You can suggest how you would do the initial
screening of the bidders. E.g. "The prospective service
provider should be ready to provide details of his previous
projects and achievements" or any statement that implies
your interest in confirming the track-record of the bidder.
You may even enlist any criteria you would use to make the
final selection. This would net in only the sincere bidders.)
· Project's open time (This is the time-span
of the active project i.e. from the time your project is posted
till the time it expires. This time is given to the project
to accumulate enough number of qualifying bids. You can extend
the time later on.)
· Do mention your terms and conditions, confidentiality
agreements or special requests, if any.
· ( ) This space is for your creativity!
You can be ingenuous and talk about anything that adds value
to your project from the freelancers' perspective. It could
be something simple like "We are looking for a long-term
business relationship with our service provider." Or
something different like "We don't mind paying a little
more for outstanding quality" or "If satisfied with
your work, as a token of appreciation, you would be our preferred
service provider for all our future needs involving this job
type!" Anything will do as long as it doesn't sound like
a sales pitch!
TIP--It's not a great idea to circumvent business ethics
and deliberately make a hazy posting that doesn't give the
bidders a fair idea about what they are signing up for! Eventually,
you might need the services of the same freelancers again!
Remember, a comprehensive posting about the
project would prevent repetitive questioning from the bidders,
would save you from any disputes later on and also cast you
in the light of a sincere business person. No wonder, good
postings are always flooded with qualifying bids. I hope,
you are now ready to make a good posting by yourself!
Continued
on Page 2
"Authored by Nadine Gibraltar for e-guru.in"
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