Comparing project details
Having a good amount of detail about your project when looking for a developer is of the greatest importance. At Developer Connection fields containing key project information are required when creating your project and this means that with us projects are always sufficiently detailed. Our posts about the importance of a good project spec and picking the best developer for your project talk about why it's so important, but it's something that is so lacking with other services. I'm sure everyone recognises the project spec that the devs see is the starting point of the project and the basis on which it can either succeed or fail. So if the level of detail in the project spec is lacking, no-one can realistically expect to attract the best, most suited developer candidates for the project as they have nothing to base their proposal on. So you can quickly imagine that if you are lacking detail, you are already starting three steps behind.
We solve this issue in our approach because:
- Many key skill fields in the developers profile are required and developers are also encouraged to add as much surrounding information as possible to showcase their skills and experience.
- All key information fields are required when creating a project and also adding as much surrounding detail as possible around the project is very much encouraged.
- Our automatic matching logic is able to cross-reference developers profiles and project spec to automatically and immediately present the best developers for each project.
Why do we do it this way? Primarily because the more information both parties have from the start, the more likely the project is to hit the ground running. But as well as that, a sufficient level of detail is going to be required anyway about both the developers skills and the project specifics so by ensuring you have this at the start leaves both parties with far fewer questions to ask and moves things on that much quicker.
In this post we are going to look at a random snapshot of projects found on other services. This will be primarily the descriptions and level of other detail to see whether it realistically gives the detail a developer actually needs to get a good grasp on the project and it's requirements.
So how was it concluded if the project post had enough detail or not? Well as it's a comparison we will be comparing to the level of detail you will find on every Developer Connection project, so more specifically do they have the following detail:
- Magento version
- New or existing store
- Theme needs building
- Screen sizes the store should work on
- Is it just frontend, backend, both
- Should the devs be certified
- One or multiple devs required
- Around how many hours work a week
- Expected project duration
These fields are required for every project on Developer Connection and I think you'll agree it's really the minimum a dev would need to have an understanding of the scope and requirements of a project, but we go further and strongly encourage clients to also fill out the optional fields as well:
- Project summary
- New frontend functionality needed?
- New backend functionality needed?
- Integration with external services?
- Customisation of the API?
- Project start date
- Project deadline
- Maximum budget
- Any additional details
You can read our post on creating your project with information on all the fields you can fill out and about the importance of a good project spec, but for this post we will be looking at Magento related project posts on Upwork, Freelancer, Guru and PeoplePerHour to see if they meet the requirements of what we consider to be the minimum level of detail, not even considering the additional level of detail we offer.
So we took a random selection of 10 Magento related projects on each service and collected a total score for each out of 10 for the minimum level of detail we require on Developer Connection. Here are the results:
Upwork
Magento version: 1
New or existing store: 6
Theme needs building: 0
Screen sizes the store should work on: 0
Is it just frontend, backend, both: 0
Should the devs be certified: 3
One or multiple devs required: 0
Around how many hours work a week: 2
Expected project duration: 2
Total: 14% (13/90)
Freelancer
Magento version: 0
New or existing store: 0
Theme needs building: 3
Screen sizes the store should work on: 2
Is it just frontend, backend, both: 0
Should the devs be certified: 0
One or multiple devs required: 0
Around how many hours work a week: 0
Expected project duration: 1
Total: 7% (6/90)
Guru
Magento version: 2
New or existing store: 5
Theme needs building: 3
Screen sizes the store should work on: 0
Is it just frontend, backend, both: 2
Should the devs be certified: 1
One or multiple devs required: 2
Around how many hours work a week: 1
Expected project duration: 3
Total: 21% (19/90)
PeoplePerHour
Magento version: 0
New or existing store: 1
Theme needs building: 1
Screen sizes the store should work on: 0
Is it just frontend, backend, both: 0
Should the devs be certified: 0
One or multiple devs required: 3
Around how many hours work a week: 0
Expected project duration: 0
Total: 6% (5/90)
So the service with the highest level of detail for Magento projects is Guru at just an average of 21%. But this is still only a 5th of the level of information you are guaranteed for every project with Developer Connection, not even considering the extensive additional information you can add on top of this. Across all the services you are looking at an average of only 12% of the information a developer needs in order to be able to effectively work on a project.
You might be wondering why the level of detail in a project post is so important? Well having a good spec from the outset gets the project off to a flying start and benefits both client and developer.
For the developer, it gives them confidence that the project has been considered carefully by the client. Seeing a good spec tells the developer the client has a solid grasp on the project requirements and is serious about getting the work done to a good standard. This in turn attracts a higher quality of developer.
For the client, getting a solid project spec from the start means that there is a good grasp on the finer details of what is required. A solid, in-depth spec will be needed by the dev anyway so you are actually just saving yourself time by building a good spec from the start as opposed to having to field similar questions from every interested development party.
So create your project with us today to attract that higher quality of developer, or subscribe now to find projects where you are not left guessing on the clients requirements.
