The first 30 days of a software project: what good looks like
Delivery · 5 min read
The first 30 days of a software project: what good looks like
You’ve signed. Now what? The first month sets the tone for everything after — and it’s also when you can still tell, cheaply, whether you hired well. Here’s what the first 30 days look like when a project is run properly, week by week, so you know what to expect and what to demand.
Week 1: Names, access, and a working rhythm
Kickoff is logistics done seriously: one named owner on each side, a shared channel where questions live (not scattered emails), access granted to the systems and data the work needs, and the release calendar on paper — dates you can hold everyone to. Boring, and it prevents half of all project drama.
Weeks 1–3: Discovery in the rooms where work happens
Workshops with the people who do the job, artifacts collected, the requirement document and wireframes taking shape and coming back to you for correction. Your effort peaks here — a prepared client makes these weeks sing. Expect drafts you can mark up, not silence.
Week 4: The signed blueprint and the first real slice
By the end of the month: a requirement both sides read and signed, wireframes of every screen, a ranked feature list, the confirmed price and phase plan — and development starting on the first slice, with the first working release scheduled just weeks out. From here, the rhythm is set: build, review, adjust, repeat.
The early-warning signs, while leaving is cheap
Thirty days in, worry if: nobody has interviewed the people who’ll use the system; questions get answered with reassurance instead of documents; there’s no date on which you’ll touch working software; or scope conversations feel slippery already. These rarely improve at month six. The inverse — named owners, written artifacts, a visible calendar, honest “here’s what we don’t know yet” — is what hiring well looks like up close.
The 30-day scorecard: an owner on each side, discovery done with the real users, a requirement you read and signed, and a date — weeks away, not months — when you touch working software.
What we ask of you in return
The first month is a partnership audition for both sides: we need your people in the workshops, your honest corrections on the drafts, and an hour of attention when a release lands. Give a good vendor that, and the next eleven months are mostly the calm repetition of month one — which is exactly the point.