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371

answers:

2
+3  Q: 

Project checklist

As a freelancer I have to interview with clients at least occasionally. Based on Really “wow” them in the interview I came up with the idea of putting together a checklist for the first discussion. Although the topic is similar to the other thread, I believe that there are differences between looking for a job as employee or as freelancer.

  • Target group:
    • Business, consumer, internal usage?
    • Number of users?
    • Project life cycle: For how long will it be supported? Extended? Replaced? Terminated?
  • Architecture:
    • Client/Server?
    • Is there a user front end (rich client? web?) or is everything running in the backend
    • Any databases involved? How?
    • Messaging queues?
    • Which platform(s) are supported respectively planned?
  • Development style:
    • Waterfall? Rapid Development?
    • Task granularity: do you assign one task to a certain developer or is it handled as a team?
    • What is the average size of a milestone? Who is responsible for the definition of milestones?
    • Who is responsible for the specifications?
    • What methods/tools do you use to coordinate the developers?
    • Do you have dedicated testers or is testing handled by the developers only?
    • Do you use automated tests? At which point in time do you create them?
    • Are there development guidelines in place (i.e. Naming Conventions)?
    • Do you use source control? Centralized or Decentralized ?
    • Is there a backup strategy for development data in place?
  • Bugs and feature requests
    • Do you use a bug tracking tool? Is it accessible for the end users?
    • What is the procedure for customer feedback respective feature requests?
  • Build process (if applicable):
    • how frequently do you create builds?
    • are automated tests part of the build process?
  • Project team:
    • What is the team structure
    • Who is the decision maker? Which reporting lines are in place?
  • Tasks:
    • Which tasks should I fulfill? One or several projects at the same time?
    • What are the 3 most important tasks I should finish within the first 1/3 of the project duration
  • Personal:
    • Do you have any concerns about me fulfilling the responsibilities of this position?

I believe that the list covers the most important topics, but is a bit too long. Please let me know what you would add or remove. Many, many thanks!

+2  A: 

Development style:

  • do you use source control ? Centralized or Decentralized ?
  • Backup strategy for development data ? (kind of influenced by the presence or not of a DVCS)
VonC
Tkx, I added your input to the question.
MrG
+2  A: 

The project's life cycle should probably be there somewhere: For how long will it be supported? Extended? Replaced? Terminated?

Heartless Angel
Tkx, added above!
MrG