I'm really proud and happy to be able to announce my first ever workshop “Managing Web Projects.” I see this as my contribution in helping to formalise the web industry and to improve the general quality of work we as an industry are doing with our clients.
For a while now I've noticed two interesting, related trends. Firstly, and my clients won't mind me saying this, the vast majority of people responsible for managing web projects at the client end have no experience at all of technology projects or of marketing projects. They may have knowledge of one or the other but not both and developing effective web sites combines both and then some. Often they are given the responsible by their boss and they soldier on as best they can – yet in the meantime there's a whole school of thought emerging on how to best do this web thing. The web industry has been cherry-picking from the worlds of pure software development, ad agencies and coming up with new ideas too. All this evolution isn't really feeding back to clients.
This workshop is for them.
At the same time there are people working really hard in web agencies of all sizes and shapes. Many of these good folks have technical or design backgrounds and have never really had a chance to do some specific formal learning on the management side of delivering web projects. Maybe they want to move up to a job with more responsibility or maybe their agency just needs to formalise a bit, get some good processes in place. There isn't a web-specific forum to learn this stuff – it's either generic project management courses or technology focussed learning programmes. People in web agencies need to learn about more than technology and design.
This workshop is for them.
It's an idea that has been brewing for a long time and has had loads of positive feedback so I'm really really jazzed to be able to say that the plans have been laid and I can announce the first date, guest speakers and more.
I'm really honoured that Antonio Gould a director at 3form will be doing a guest slot on managing the client – web agency relationship. I'm also honoured and delighted that my new friend Andy Budd a director at clear:left will be doing a slot on web standards. Both are at the top of our field and know shed-loads.
I've also been showered with generosity from the lovely people at Omni Group and BrainStorm Software both of whom have offered me a 10% discount on their software for the workshop's attendees. My own company Swing Digital is also offering 10% off their software. As that Iceland ad went “Have we got a deal or have we got a deal!”
The workshop will be a day long learning adventure on 26th January 2006 with cocktails afterwards where everyone, not just attendees, is welcome to talk web. The venue is being finalised next week so I'll let you know as soon as I know!
The workshop site is at:
http://www.kitcat-workshops.com
Jason Kitcat 