How are projects scheduled?

New Web Site Projects

When we are creating a new web site we set an entire project plan at one time. We will give you a start date, an end date (when the full site will be finished) and one or more 'milestones' along the way. We will give this schedule to you as part of our new project proposal.

During the work on the project you will be able to follow the progress (and schedule) of the project via our management site.

At times it may be necessary to adjust the project schedule*. If this happens we will update you with the revised schedule as soon as it is available.

On-going projects

For projects related to existing web sites we set our production schedule for each month on or about the 15th of the previous month. At that time we will 'block out' our time to work on your project.

We fill the schedule using a number of factors including:

• Client Priority Order - we have several factors that determine the priority that your projects receive, this includes the length of time that you have been a client of Paschen Communications and if you have a retainer package with us.
• Special/critical event dates - if you have a special business date (like appearing at a conference, special seasonal event, etc.) we try to schedule to meet your deadlines
• Scope/Complexity of project - we try to not put very complex projects close to each other within our schedule. This helps ensure that you get our full brain power devoted to your project
• Team/Resource availability - we are able to pull in a number of different people to help on any project. This gives us flexibility to meet various project needs; however, not all of those people are avilable all the time. Sometimes your project schedule may be effected by those availabilities.

In addition to 'blocking out' set development time, we also intentionaly leave open space in our schedule to allow for emergencies that occur (server issues, major site problems, Joomla! and extension updates, etc.). We also leave time in the schedule to allow adding time to scheduled projects and to insert short projects that come up during the month. This helps to ensure that you don't have to wait 6-7 weeks just to get a small change made to your site.

*Adjustments to the Project Schedule

In any development schedule adjustments must happen. How we schedule the 'adjustments' depends on the reason why the adjustment is necesary.

Server/System Critical Issues

We no only create new web 'stuff', we also maintain all the existing stuff for most of our clients. Because we do that there are times when there will be critical things happen that we could never have planned for - like an emergency Joomla! (or extension) security patch that must be applied (to all our hosted clients), or servers that are experiencin problems preventing web sites from working properly. Although we do allow time in our schedule for regular updates and time for regular server maintenance, sometimes these issues take more time than we have allotted. When that happens it may cause a delay in the individual work schedule for a specific project. When that happens we usually are able to make-up the time within that week. Those are the times whey you will find us working into the evening or weekend.

Waiting for you to respond

Because we pre-schedule our major project work and communicate that to you up to 6 weeks in advance, we need you to be available and to respond in a timely manner to any questions that may arrise. If we hit an issue which requires your response yet we don't get a response within the same business day your project may be delayed or even re-scheduled completely. If we ask a question which requires an answer before we proceed with further development, and you don't respond within 24 hours, your project may be pulled from that months project schedule and we may move on to a different project (yours or from another client). If that happens we will let you know the adjusted schedule after we have the original question answered.

If you don't answer for more than 72 hours we will likely remove your project from the schedule completely and re-schedule it during our next production planning schedule (around the 15th of each month).

If this happens repeatedly we may reduce your 'priority level' (even if you have a retainer package).

Sickness or other personal issues

If any member of the production team is ill we may need to adjust the schedule. In most cases we can get caught-up on the schedule within 5-10 days once the person is available. If such an issue were to result in a delay of more than 5-10 working days to your project we will alert you and work to bring other resources/team members onto the team to help with the project.

Evenings and Weekends (and holidays)

As infered above, we may need to do work on evening or weekends in order to compensate for any unexpected issues in our schedule. When we make that determination and plan working hours during those times there is no additional cost to you. However, if you specifically request work to be done during evenings and weekends we do charge an hourly rate of 1.5 times your standard rate.

Holidays and Sundays are handled in a similar manner. If you request work to specifically be completed on any standard US holiday or on Sunday we charge an hourly rate of 2 times your standard rate.

Rush work

If you have something come up that requires a rush turn-around we will try to get that into our schedule, using the flexible, open time that we have built into our schedule. However, if all that extra space has already been taken we will let you know that and when we would be able to get the task done. If you don't want to wait you can request that we work on this either in the evenings or weekend or holiday. In those cases, the same extra hourly rates above would apply.