Project Archives - Foreign policy

Signs you have hired a good Construction Company

Published on April 22, 2021April 22, 2021

Business

Finding a reliable construction company you can cooperate with and be sure they will finish the project on time and the way you expected can be a very challenging task. Unfortunately, it’s not very easy to find a good construction company. If you are doubting about the company you hired, you should check the things we prepared in this article and see whether your company meets the requirements listed below. If you are still looking for a good construction company, we have good news for you. As we know how hard and challenging it can be to find the reliable and credible one, we finish the work for you. You can consult with the great experts from Patco Construction Company ME that have a lot of experience in this field and see whether they can satisfy your expectations.

Things that reliable and credible company needs to have

When you are hiring a construction company, you need to research very well that company in order to ensure you hired the right one. For instance, a credible contractor company will always have a portfolio. In other words, you need to investigate their work history because every good company will have a history of work and projects that will be proud to show. In that way, they attract new customers. So, as you see, you should not look just at the price because there are many other things you need to check when you are hiring the construction company. You are risking very much if you hire an unverified company. All good companies have previous experience, so you should be free to ask them to show you references and previous projects. Also, you should not forget to ask about both professional and financial references. Every trustworthy company will be more than willing to show you.

Ask about insurance coverage and their license

When you are hiring a construction company, you should not be embarrassed to ask for insurance coverage and to see their license. Logically, before you ask them to provide you legal documents, we suggest you ask around what companies need to have. In other words, you should find what license and registration they need to have and ensure they can not deceive you. If the construction company has all the necessary legal credentials, that means they can legally do their job and you can trust them. On the other hand, as we said, you need to search for proof of insurance because that will protect you and your project. In the end, you will have peace in your mind knowing you hired the right company for the job and spare yourself from potential stress and unpleasant scenarios.

They should provide you all the asked information

All companies that provide some kind of service put their customers and their needs in the first place. They are working for them, so they need to provide you all the information you are asking from them. Logically, a reliable contractor company will understand how important it is to develop mutual trust between the customers, so they are willing to answers and meet their requirements. One more thing that all good construction companies will do is obtaining the necessary permits and inspections in order to ensure that your project is according to industry standards and rules.

The company needs to provide you written estimate

If you are wondering whether you hired the right construction company just check whether they provide you a detailed written estimate of the project. That means they needed to give you all information about the project, costs, resources, supplies, etc. Also, they need to show you financial documents, so you would know how much each part of the project costs. In that way, you will have a full representation of where your funds go. Also, you will be prepared for unexpected costs. In case you notice and suspect hesitation of the company or they are trying to hide something from you, that would be a clear sign they are doing something they should not.

Payments

One more thing you should pay attention to when you are wondering whether you hired the right company is upfront costs. More precisely, the deposit for the entire project is something they have the right to ask for, but that is usually an affordable price. However, they should not require the full amount of money upfront. Logically, they should expect money until they finish the project for you. Despite this, you should compare the prices with some other companies as well and see whether they are asking for the same or similar amount of money. That will be a clear sign that the company does not only want to take your money. Instead, they want to be fair and charge you the proper amount of money for the completed project.

Check their reviews and reputation on the Internet

While we are living in the digital era, we should take advantage of it. More precisely, since you probably own a smartphone and have social media accounts, you should check for the profiles and pages of the construction company. Search on Google, Instagram, FB and see their reviews and pictures of their previous projects and decide whether you are satisfied with the things you are seeing there. A good construction company will put a big effort into their “portfolio” and try really hard to satisfy their customers with the samples of their previous work. So, if you see they have a good reputation and reviews, you should not worry about whether you hire the right team for the job!

They respect the rules you established

Every credible and experienced construction company will be respectful of your opinion, your rules, and the property they need to work on. In other words, while they are working for you, they need to do the job and respect the workspace and working time. Also, they should clean after they make a mess every day. Logically, communication is key, so you and your construction team should stay in touch and consult regularly and fix all the potential problems. In that way, you will be familiar with the process of their work and they will be familiar with your expectations. So, if something unexpected came up, you will all try to discuss the option and fix the problem easily.

Replacement Windows Contractor – Tips to Follow to Choose Proper One

Published on February 6, 2020

House

Installing new replacement windows in your home is an excellent investment that needs a lot of money and time. Since windows keep off weather elements and intruders from getting into your home, they are some of the essential elements in your home. So, if you decide to replace them, you ought to take everything seriously, from choosing the windows to the installation of such windows.

Apart from window selection, one of the main things that give homeowners a headache when it comes to renovation projects is choosing the right contractor to install their replacement glasses. When selecting a contractor, there is a probability that you can end up with fly-by-night contractors who promise gold and end up delivering unimaginable. So, here are tips that will come in handy when choosing a window contractor for your home improvement project. Take a look here.

1.Understand Your Needs

If you choose a professional window replacement contractor, he will be able to assess your home and identify some upgrades that you need to do in your home. Still, it makes sense to look for a window contractor who at least understands what your glasses need and also what is not necessary to do on your windows.

That will ensure that your window upgrades are only focused on what is essential and that you don’t spend much time on less important aspects.

If they are broken, you would want to repair them or replace them as soon as possible to make your home comfortable to live in. You would also like to restore your privacy. However, sometimes it may be hard to identify damaged them. If such windows go unidentified, they can result in serious issues such as structural damage. Over time, the window might let in drafts, and mold and mildew might start to grow in your home. That can have severe implications for your health, which can end up being costly in terms of maintenance and repair.

2. Choose The Most Reputable Window Installer

To make sure that your replacement windows serve you better, you would want to choose an experienced window installer to install them. Even if you have the best windows with the highest energy efficiency and you choose a window installer who cannot install them correctly, those windows will not give you the maximum energy efficiency as they should. That is why you need an experienced window installer to fit your windows.

But how do you get one? Well here is how:

Ask for referrals.

Ask for referrals is one of the best ways you can get a reputable window contractor. That is because you will be relying on tested services by a person who referred you to that particular window installer.

Some of the sources you may get referrals from include;

Trusted sources such as neighbors, friends, and families.
You may contact the Better Business Bureau.
You may also connect with some of the most reputable window contractors.

You would want to get their contacts and call these sources and ask them whether they may recommend you to any contractor they have worked with before. However, don’t take every word from them. Ask several questions and make your own decisions based on the information you have in hand.

3. Be Proactive In Window Replacement

Should you always wait until those windows cannot work so that you may get new replacement windows? Absolutely no. If you suspect the windows are not working as they should, or they are not looking beautiful like before, you don’t have to wait. Get window replacement before the situation of those windows worsens, and you have to spend even more money in replacing your windows.

Also, remember that if a window is weak, the condition can be weakened further by weather elements such as storms, which might end up causing even more problems.

So, it makes sense to call a contractor after every three years to inspect your doors and windows and tell you whether there are any repairs needed. That is crucial in preventing further damages and reducing the cost of renovating your home.

Before hiring a contractor, you should do the following:

Choose the right firm.

Once you have defined your options, ask for quotes written in several firms. Do not automatically choose the lowest offer. Ask for explanations to see if there is any reason that justifies the price difference.

Ask for a list to check if the contractor is sufficiently familiar with projects similar to yours.

Should I ask for a permit for my project?

In most states and localities, permits must be processed for construction or building projects, even for simple projects such as the construction of a wooden plank patio. A competent contractor will obtain all necessary permits before beginning work on your project. You may want to choose a contractor who is familiar with the permit processing process in your county, city, or town.

Request the List of References

A genuine contractor should be able to give you the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of at least three clients with projects similar to yours. Ask each of these clients how long the project has been completed. Was the client satisfied? Were there any unexpected costs? Did the workers show up for work within the established hours and did the cleaning after finishing their work? You could also tell the contractor that you would like to visit the job you are currently doing.

What types of insurance do you have?

Contractors must have:

Personal liability insurance.
Workers’ compensation insurance.
Insurance coverage for property damage.

Ask for copies of the insurance certificates and check that they are in effect. Otherwise, you could be held liable for injuries or damages that may occur during the development of the project.

Will you use subcontractors for this project?

If so, make sure all subcontractors have current insurance coverage and also the applicable licenses.

To find builders, remodelers, and related suppliers in your area who are members of the National Association of Home Builders, visit nahb.org. For detailed information on a builder, service provider, or remodeler in your area, contact the local home builders association.

Understand your payment options

Do not pay in cash.

Smaller projects can be paid by check or credit card. Many people seek financing for longer projects.

Try to limit the amount of the down payment

Some state laws restrict the amount of money that a contractor may require as a down payment. You should contact your consumer protection agency to find out what the applicable law is in your area.

During the project, try to pay based on a defined amount of finished work.

In this way, if the work is not executed according to schedule, you can also delay payments.

Should Your Next Node.js Project Use Microservice Architecture?

Published on July 25, 2019

Business/Technology

Microservice applications have taken over in the last few years. Amazon, Netflix and SoundCloud are just a handful of the major companies that run microservice architecture. Many app entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the benefits of microservices and are moving away from the rigidity of monolithic single apps. Not to suggest that microservice architecture should be used for everything—it’s about understanding your options and ensuring that using microservices will add business value to your project.

Because you’re reading this, I’m going to guess you’re Javascript developer and want to be able to create high performance, scalable apps that can handle a huge number of requests. Node has opened up the backend for JS developers, and it has totally changed our ecosystem. It has also (with the rise of Docker and Kubernetes) created a huge space for JavaScript microservice development that’s incredibly tempting for a clever developer.

What are Microservices?

Microservice architecture splits up the pieces of an app into smaller applications that are easily maintainable, individually deployable and testable, and tailorable to business requirements. Generally, microservices have made app development a lot more productive and allowed a development team to more easily perform quality assurance, since testing doesn’t require deployment of an entire stack. Testing in isolation means that one cracked brick won’t topple your whole castle—you can easily add or remove components as needed.

Next, Why Would Microservice Architecture Work Well With Node.js?

Simplicity

Although using microservices speeds up development, implementing microservices across different runtime environments with different codebases can cause conflict. In the event that multiple microservices break, it may be more difficult to fix everything unless you’ve hired some rockstar developer who specializes in 10+ languages. Microservice architecture running in Node.js keeps debugging simple—since everything is JS, your developers only need to know a single language to debug across the board.

Locating and Fixing Bugs

With microservices, finding bugs themselves is a lot easier. Think about it like this: it’s a lot easier to find a ball in a sectioned garden, rather than a forest. In a garden, it’s a lot easier to spot a plant that’s out of place or an annoying weed. This is exactly what it’s like using microservices with Node.js—bugs are easy to spot and can be dealt with promptly.

Scalability

Scalability is an essential part of an app’s success. In the event of increased traffic, the last thing you want to happen is for anything to crash. The problem with a monolithic app is that achieving consistent scalability is going to take a lot of work, as the code is more tightly interlinked and it can be harder to figure out where data is bottlenecking. Microservice architecture makes it easy to identify exactly what parts of your app are the issue, so you can target them more surgically. If any of these microservices do run into further problems, you don’t have to worry about the entire app breaking and you can still provide a satisfactory user experience.

Your scalability potential is infinite—the only limit being your own budget. This scalability is achievable due to Node.js’s single-threaded asynchronous architecture, which ensures high performance on any scale. Though it struggles with CPU-intensive data, Node is absolutely unparalleled at handling high request volume and can scale up to handle millions of requests at a time.

Easier Maintenance

When maintenance or system upgrades are necessary, you only have to worry about adding new features to a single microservice, avoiding any downtime that monolithic single apps have to experience. This aligns with the modular, service-based approach that Node.js emphasizes. Ease of maintenance reinforces not only the technical efficiency but time and cost efficiency of a Node.js microservice app.

Workflow Efficiency

If you’re working in a development team, splitting up workflow is a lot simpler with microservices, especially when your app is large and complex. Microservices stop different developers from stepping on others’ toes and slowing each other down. It can be stressful when team members have to wait upon someone else, then that certain person becomes sick, then the entire productivity of your project gets thrown out of whack. Microservices allow you to better compartmentalize, and creates less inter-staff dependency.

Cost Efficiency During Development

To understand how Node.js microservice apps are more affordable we can use a banana analogy (everyone likes bananas right?). Imagine a monolithic app as a bunch of bananas that are wrapped together and have to be purchased as a bunch. Then imagine another row of individual bananas, in which you have the freedom to separate and purchase only one banana for your cost-effective smoothie. Think of each banana as a microservice, instead of paying for your entire app to be upgraded, you only need to invest in the appropriate microservice. Thus, saving you time and money when wanting to improve your app.

Cost-Efficiency When Hiring

With microservice architecture, hiring Node.js developers from web development companies is very simple. Most development companies will offer developer packages, which are flexible hiring plans that allow you to change the amount of external assistance based on current project requirements. The reasons why this meshes so well with a microservice architecture is that it’s really easy to read your project and figure out how much assistance you need.

For cost-effective hiring options, one recommended development company is CodeClouds.com. They offer affordable developer packages and they specialize in Node.js. Finding Node.js experts can be difficult—often you get general JavaScript developers or frontend web developers. If you’re looking to hire Node.js developers and no less, CodeClouds is a strong option.

The other options when looking for Node developers is to hire a freelancer. The limitation here being that it’s going to be more difficult to extend your team if you need—the only other option is to hire and interview another freelancer. Not to mention, freelancers are likely to have differing working hours, which can be uneasy when wanting to meet deadlines. However, compared to a monolithic app, microservice apps are certainly easier if wanting to hire multiple freelancers. If seriously considering this, you’re best bet is to hire from Toptal.

Quick Recap

To sum things up, a microservice-based Node.js app is a great idea, depending on your app. If your app is data-intensive and unbearably complex or heavy when imagined as a monolith, then the tips in this article are for you! From a cost-efficiency perspective, Node.js apps are a great choice and make the pathway of business growth a lot clearer.

Finally, I must emphasise that in no way was this article designed to say monolithic apps are a bad idea. Both microservices and monolithic structures have their pros and cons. Especially if you’re processing low-volume, CPU-intensive data, Node isn’t really a great idea. Single-threading is excellent at dealing with request volume but it’s going to struggle when that single thread gets choked up by more complex data. The key is to understand both and make an informed decision as to what is the best choice for your ambitions.

How to Start Your Project Successfully: A Step-by-Step Guideline

Published on July 2, 2019

Business

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), projects can often fail because of the following factors:

Project managers or owners focus more on technical details rather than business value.
There is a lack of a standardized view on how to measure results.
There are no measurements to evaluate productivity in order to compare this data to similar projects.
Project managers don’t have a certain methodology to plan and execute the projects.
Customers don’t take an active part in project planning.
Team members are not motivated.
Team members don’t have enough tools or skills to develop a project.

As you can see, there are lots of factors can lead to the project’s failure. Thus, if you are on your start line to create something new, make sure that you know how to start the one successfully. In this post, you will learn about the main steps to follow when starting a project, what factors affect success, and which tools to use.

What Is a Project Management Triangle?

Managers use the project management triangle model to identify and analyze the key issues that they can meet during the project execution. The core constraints of any project include scope, time, and cost that are altogether known as PM triangle.

To be prepared for any difficulties, you should clearly understand each of the points of the triangle.

Scope

The scope of the project includes deliverables that should be completed. Any changes in the scope can influence cost and time. Thus, it should be well-planned and understood by all the team members.

Time

The time needed to complete the project tasks depends on many factors including the number of team members, their experience, and skills. Considering time aspects, project managers have to remember about deadlines.

Cost

Any costs should be estimated beforehand; that is crucial for both project managers and customers. An allocated budget ensures that the product is developed on time and within budget.

As you can see in the image above, quality stands in the center of the project management triangle. Although quality is not a part of the triangle, it is considered to be the primary objective of any product delivery that impacts the project’s success. Below is a step-by-step guideline to seamlessly start your project considering constraints triangle into account.

Initiation Phase: Steps to Start a Project

Step 1 – Business Case

A business case will help you find out and structure the reasons why you start a given project. Business cases, usually, support business needs and are adaptable to fit the risks and scope of a certain project, however, structurally will be the same for each of your projects.

Simply put, it is a document that must be easily understood. Typically, a business case consists of a preface, a table of contents, a project briefing, an introduction, a scope, and financial data along with some conclusions.

Step 2 – Feasibility Study

The next step in the initiation phase is conducting a feasibility analysis. It demonstrates all the business problems and all the possible ways to solve those problems. This study is aimed to determine the opportunities and document what specifically is required to accomplish the project successfully. At the same time, participants of a feasibility analysis identify all the possible risks along with the means to eliminate them.

Step 3 – Project Charter

Charters determine the structure, objectives, and project execution plan. They contain detailed information about the deliverables and scope, roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders.

Step 4 – Team

You can’t start a project without a suitable team with the right skills and experience. Thus, your next step is to write job descriptions. In these descriptions, you should provide detailed information about the roles and responsibilities of each team member. Also, you should list the experience and skills that you need to accomplish the project.

Step 5 – Project Office

The next step of any initiation phase is to determine the workspace where the team will be based while developing the project. You should also discuss the communication and technology stack issues. The workflow must be outlined, as well.

Step 6 – Review

After all the steps of the initiation phase are followed, you need to review everything. By reviewing the phase, you will be able to determine if all the steps were followed and if all the requirements are met. This phase should be constantly reviewed within the whole SDLC.

Factors Affecting the Success of a Project Start Phase

Any project idea may be great but not be realized because of the wrong initiation steps. Thus, you should consider the key factors of a productive project.

Validated idea
Clear goals
Clear requirements
Concrete milestones
Steps to follow
Encouraged team
Customer’s support

A lot of projects start with great ideas and the intention to take over the world. However, without enough motivation and enthusiasm, projects can fail. Before starting to develop a project, validate if it is valuable to your buying persona. You can consult with Diceus dedicated development team on how to conduct a proper business analysis or ask them to carry it out.

To achieve success in project development, you should also set clear goals. With concrete objectives in place, you will be able to develop the right strategy. Based on your key objectives, you will sort out the major requirements for the project and set milestones along with the deadlines. As you can see, there are a lot of factors you should keep in mind to gain success. Besides, you must have a set of specific tools to track time, monitor progress, plan milestones; be sure you have also professional developers and other needed resources to accomplish your project.

General objectives that guide the activities and relationships of one state in its interactions with other states.

Project