Project Management

The First Step

When you prepare to head out on a journey, if you want to arrive at your destination in the quickest, least expensive, and most efficient way, you do your homework first, then you make a plan. That’s why, when we take on your project, the first person you’ll work with is our Client Success Director.

It’s the CSD’s job to get you started off on the right foot which usually begins with a discovery process. The CSD will pull in developers, business analysts and others to make sure your business needs are understood, prioritized, estimated and approved by you before development begins. Clear objectives and direction help us accellerate development and keep costs down.

Project Management Saves Money

Being accountable to our clients is so important to us, we developed custom software to make the process efficient and cost-free to clients.

Some clients are accustomed to working directly with a freelancer or an internal development team, so they may be taken aback by working with an intermediary to the developers. But, over time, they come to understand the benefits of this approach.

So what are they?

The Project Manager applies all they know from working with scores of merchants, to ensure the whole team stays on a straight path toward your objectives. At times, the PM may anticipate the need for a course correction and will quickly get everyone back on track again.

Our project managers provide accountability and transparency. For example, every day that we work on your account, you’ll get an email from Razoyo that shows:

• Who worked on your account
• How long they worked on it
• How much of your budget has been used

Business Analysts Are a Great Deal

Because many features are complex and we have to consider a variety of cases, the PM may pull a Business Analyst in to do a deep dive. The BA has done this hundreds of times and can help prepare a requirement, acceptance criteria and even testing plans to make sure the development process is streamlined and the result meets your expectations.

Developers work more efficiently when a feature is planned out for them because this gives them a solid list of cases (situations) to consider along with clear outcomes. BAs help our clients put their goals into developer terms, and that saves money.

Some tasks call for a lot of detail work, such as catalog updates that require more attention to detail and less technical prowess. BAs work with developers to manage your data, which is almost always more efficient than using a developer alone. Through this process, you are more likely to reach your merchandising goals because the BA understands your business, and they ensure that the developers do too.

Finally, BAs help to keep developers honest by writing up testing plans and protocols. This saves you time by ensuring that all requirements have passed a testing phase before you are asked to approve new features and content.

Everyone is Different

Some clients have technical expertise that allows them to write their own user stories; they are nearly ready to work directly with a developer, requiring little BA work. Others need help from BAs to clarify their ideas and prioritize tasks to help them stay within their budgets. In those cases, the BA will spend only the time necessary to keep your projects on time and on budget.

By using the right resources for the right reasons and by maintaining continual, solid communication, Razoyo keeps its clients in control of their budgets, priorities, and timelines.