We’ve been observing patterns on client behavior that cast some light on how a project is going to develop. By recognizing this patterns, you can avoid clients that will drown your energy, work with clients that get the big picture, advance your career and obviously make more money.

Have you observe any pattern of client behavior?

A successful web development project is the one that carefully listens to their visitors, customers and clients. There are projects where feedback starts even before any design or web development; moreover, it is not a coincidence that those are the projects that live longer or even become profitable. Even if you have not collected user data yet, you must set up a well design feedback loop if you are aiming for success.

I love how hashrocket asked, listened and crafted RMM (rails maturity model). Obie introduced it in the Rails Business list with this message (Feb, 12). Surely after, there was a rave about certifications vs whatever. All this controversy generated tons of blog posts like this, this, this and a huge twitter stream.

The feedback gathered around the information stream was priceless. It is truly an example of how we can validate our market and get feedback from users even before investing in development. It took Obie just one email. Today, they launched the app unofficially and all the drama around the certification argument was put to rest by their tagline “Rails Maturity Model It?s not about certification. It?s about success”. Be sure to notice that their tagline was gathered from early feedback.

To immature people I left the discussion on how much of a good thing is the RMM for the rails community. However, we can learn how to ask for early feedback from this example. We see a lot of value on professional development and give two thumbs up for this project. We are proud to be part of the RMM and we are honored to be among giant firms. Surely, we’ll learn many more things from all of them.