If you're like most people, then you've probably heard the web design nightmare that some clients or colleagues have gone through, but have you ever thought about why so many people have a web design horror story? Are web designers and developers just horrible people who's primary goal is to oversell and under deliver just to win your business?

The answer is NO, most companies or freelancers truly intend to deliver on what was originally agreed between the agency and the client; however, often times during the course of a project the scope is changed, usually by the client, and most smaller design companies don't realize that when the scope changes the cost must change as well. It's happen to us numerous times where we put out a fixed bid on a project, begin development, get new requirements and still attempt to deliver those requirements within our original estimate...it's a nightmare waiting to happen.

Luckily, we've been able to take that experience and learn from our mistakes and as such have moved to an agile process for development. Unlike a fixed cost/fixed features project we now work within a clients budget to deliver the maximum number of features during a given cycle. Cycles are run from month to month so we can easily adjust and change requirements through out the entire life of the project with out jeopardizing the clients desire to receive what they want and our desire to be compensated for our time and expertise. Clients love the process because at anytime they can know exactly what time we spent working on a particular piece of their project; and our team loves it because it gives everyone a common goal, while holding each other accountable. I'm not saying that an agile process is right for every project, especially if your in banking or the medical industry, but if you plan on growing and evolving your website why not begin with a process that is optimized for rapid development and change.