After you’ve assessed the different needs of your project, you will be in a better position to determine how long it will take, and exactly how much it will cost. “Time is money,” of course, but that’s rarely more true than within the bounds of a consulting engagement on css code. Granted, it’s a fine thing to discuss strategy, scope, and staffing, but it’s your project’s budget that will determine whether or not any of those things actually come to fruition. With a properly established budget, you can begin to add people and technical resources to your css project plan, as well as any other expenses that your project might require when working on the css profile .

Furthermore, the amount of money allocated to a given project can limit the size of your team. Perhaps our project plan requires two developers and one designer but funds exist only for two full-time resources. As a result, something must go: either reduce the number of staff on our project, or reduce the scope of the project to the point at which two people can easily handle it.

Conversely, the budget could affect the quality of your team: if the funds are not available to hire an experienced application developer, then we might need to hire a less-expensive (and perhaps less-seasoned) resource instead. Or, if the budget is especially tight, we just might need to pick up that Perl book and start skimming. Therefore, a solid understanding of any budgetary constraints will help us understand the extent to which we’ll need to bootstrap our own skills or those of our team members, and how that preparation will affect timelines.

This is what is known as “scope creep” and is a part of almost every project. At some point, the requirements outlined at the beginning of the contract may need to be updated to reflect some new or updated business requirement. If our project can’t adapt to our client’s needs, then we’re likely working on the best product they’ll never be able to use. So, while this kind of change is expected, it is very important to know how to manage it effectively. No designer wants his or her timelines in a constant state of flux, especially when the budget isn’t. How, then, do we manage scope creep within a project? There is no easy answer to this question, but there are a few strategies that might be useful to keep in mind.