I recently turned down a project that had some the hallmarks of things I know to avoid.
- Doing 'research' after most big decisions have been made
- Poor access to the people who are in control of sign off decisions
- All decisions going up to the CEO for sign off or approval
- Marketing department doing the content
- Doing most of the interaction design before any content has been thought of
- A roadmap that went on for over a year
I could go on.
They had a decent amount of money behind them and were assembling a team of designers and developers that appeared to know what they were doing. But, the management team had a roadmap and the main goal for them and to investors was just to stick to it and deliver as much as possible as quickly as possible. So I said, thanks, but no thanks. I've had my fingers burned before by working on bad projects.
Asking the questions on how the team is setup, what success looks like, what the vision is all now play a pivotal part not just in accepting work, but rejecting it as well. Seems obvious now. But it's one of those things that I would have heard and accepted, but not understood until having to do it.
I used some of the stuff from this really good post to help with the sort of questions I ask before i do projects these days.