Matthew Lang

via FGGT

Amsterdam seen through the sketchnotes of Mike Rohde.

When it comes to working with clients, there's a shared responsibility to ensure that both parties are using the right tools to work together.

For the last few weeks I've become increasingly uncomfortable in how I work with a client. In the past we've used a particular collaboration tool to manage projects and communicate through, but in the last few weeks this tool has been abandoned in favour for development requests through a chat room. At first it was minor requests like tweaks to the UI and changes to the messages that were displayed to the user when a form was incorrect. Steadily though it's increased to bigger changes and feature requests. Instant Messaging Driven Development if you wanted to put a label on it.

After explaining an issue in the code with the client I took the chance to talk to them about the increasing use of the chat room for requests rather than the collaboration tool that we originally used. I explained my worries about the trend towards this and the drawbacks that the client will inherit as a result of the continued use of the chat room for sending requests for software changes.

The issue was heard loud and clear from the client and for the next hour of the call we discussed plans to move back to the collaboration tool as well as guidelines for using the tool and what we can do to reinforce its place as the go to point for projects. It was a successful discussion.

When you and your client agree on a particular tool to use for collaborating on projects, then it is important that you stick to this. These tools are initially picked for a reason and that's because both you and the client are happy to use the tool and it will serve both your needs. When either side of this arrangement doesn't use the tool then that's where things can go wrong.

Collaboration tools such as Trello, Basecamp and other tools are there to ease the burden of remote parties working together. Parties can share information, assign tasks, check overall progress and much more. Other tools for communicating like IM, phone, text and email are best at communicating but they're a bad choice as collaboration tools.

Who's to blame? Well, in this case both myself and the client. On one hand the client should be adhereing to the agreement of using the collaboration tool. On the other hand, I could have mentioned this to the client sooner rather than let it continue for the few weeks that it did. I admit I was hesistant about bringing this issue to the client, but they were understanding about my concerns and promised to start using the collaboration tool again.

The next time a client deviates from the collaboration tool we've chosen, I'll politely remind them of our preferred place for such things. And yes, I would expect them to do the same to me.

via PEDAL Consumption

This one is definitely going on the playlist.

That list of things is a wish list, a someday-maybe list, but it is not a task list until you commit a time for those things getting done. Those are things you hope to do — not things you are going to do. Know how I know you are not “going” to do them? Going is an action verb. It means you are in the act of committing a forward movement. Anything staying motionless on a list is not forward movement. Putting a time on something to be done in the future, then moving towards that time, means going to do something. And you are not going to do any of those things unless you do.

— A Time for Things by Patrick Rhone

I'm going to give Twitter another go but this time just as a broadcasting tool.

In the past I've been against using Twitter. For me it became too much noise and watching my stream day in and out was becoming difficult to manage. I could have scaled back the number of people I followed but after choosing to stop using Twitter, it was clear I wasn't missing out on much.

The people who I like to follow already keep their own sites and blogs updated on a regular schedule. I already follow these people using RSS feeds from their sites and blogs. It doesn't make much sense to 'subscribe' again to these people through a different medium.

And yet, I do think there is a use for Twitter. Ever since I read a post about the use of Twitter as a broadcast medium (sorry, can't find the link!), I've wondered if that's how I should be using Twitter?

So far a month, I'm going to activate my Twitter account again and point my site's RSS feed to Twitter. I've set myself a number of limits though.

• My Twitter account will be a broadcast only account. No tweets, favourites or reposts will come from me personally. The only tweets I will be making will be fed from my RSS feed.
• I won't be interacting with others on Twitter. If a tweet receives a reply in the form of constructive criticism then I'll endeavour to contact that person through email.
• My account will remain private. Strange I know, but I want to get a handle on the number of people that follow me. In the past I've had to continually block unwanted followers on Twitter. I've no idea what their engineers have done, if anything, to clamp down on spam accounts. The best way I see to get control is to accept each follow request as they come in. With my account only posting links from my blog, I don't expect to see many follow requests and the bulk of them that request to follow me should be genuine enough.

We'll see how it goes.

via Cycle EXIF

Despite my efforts to simplify my tools, there are some that I just need to keep using. They're just too important.

Yesterday I wrote about simplifying the tools I use in an effort to minimize the amount of data that I push around. I was all of sudden concious of having data spread across different services and the number of tools I was using to do this. Some things though require specialist software, like your accounting and invoicing aspect of your business. You can't simplify book-keeping and accounting without it having an impact on your business and career. Which is why the business critical software is the exception to simplifying the data and tools I use.

For a number of years I worked as an ERP developer for a company that provided development and consultancy services on a Microsoft ERP solution for small to medium size businesses. This one solution could meet most of the software requirements for your business. It has modules for accounting, inventory, customers, invoicing, purchasing and much more. That all encompassing ability run multiple aspects of a single business came at a cost though. It is a fairly complicated solution to run and maintain correctly. When used correctly though it becomes a critical part of the business.

My needs aren't so great that I need a solution like this, but I still need software to help me run my business. I require help with invoicing, accounting, time-tracking and expenses. Tracking all of these on my own just wouldn't make any sense. I have customers to invoice, projects to track, taxes to pay and more. I could do this on my own with a number of spreadsheets, an address book and some software cobbled together by myself, but that would require time to implement and it's not a valuable use of my time.

I use FreeAgent for all the requirements I just mentioned. It works, it's affordable and it doesn't require a steep learning curve to use. It does require some time to find out how to use effectively as a business tool, but that's why it's so great. I can use the parts of FreeAgent that I need to begin with and then gradually start looking into other features it offers to help me run my business. It then becomes a business critical tool. I need it to run my business. It's not complicated to use, but then it's not also so simple that I can switch over to something else if I wanted too.

Business critical tools are the exception to the rule when it came to cutting back on the tools I use. The trade off between using something simpler would have a negative impact on my time. I would end up spending more time managing my business data than I would delivering value to clients. It's not wise to cut corners when it comes to business critical tools.