We’ve all had our fair share of angry clients. They’ll call or email, outraged that something has or hasn’t happened, dutifully heaping a big steaming pile of blame on your lap. And as good web designers or freelancers, it’s our responsibility to eat that blame and make everything right.

But what if we could avoid the mess in the first place?

It’s not easy, but it’s certainly feasible. Moreover, preventing client anger is something you should strive for, because no one likes dealing with angry people.

So, how can we prevent the anger? Below I’ve outlined eleven tried-and-true methods of proactively handling projects and clients before they succumb to strained feelings.

Managing web design projects is one difficult job. There are communication and organizing issues, negotiation and networking, and most of all, a strong need for planning. Effectively wielding the skills necessary to implement a successful project can be painful. Sometimes you have to tell a client, “no,” and other times you have deal with a plan that’s falling apart. And if you’re a freelancer or small business, you’re probably doing a majority of the actual design and development work.

Then again, that’s part of the game and what makes project and client relationship management such a diverse and interesting field. Each day throws a new rock at you. You just need to be sure you can catch it.

What kind of skills does it take to make an effective web design project manager? I asked myself this and came up with six definitive qualities. I don’t think you need to master each one, but it doesn’t hurt to be constantly sharpening and refining these skills.

Web designers that freelance or work at small companies usually have a myriad of distractions that take away from projects. Whether it’s a client technical support issue or billing management, it seems as if everything in the world is aligned against us. By the end of the day we look at our project schedule and realize that very little got done.

This seems to be the price we pay for the freedom of doing things our way. Fortunately, it’s an easy issue to overcome. I’ve outlined below proven ways to dedicate more quality time with your projects without sacrificing the other parts of your business. They’re proven because I’ve implemented them with success and am confident you can too.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working the midnight oil on a new site. Let’s start off with the name of it. Project Palace was literally the first domain I searched for in GoDaddy. I don’t know why I chose the word “palace” but it was available and I grabbed it.

So I had a name and then I had an idea (doesn’t it always work in that order?). I wanted to create a site that aggregated the best articles and blog posts on project management for web design and development. I see a severe lack of emphasis in this area. It seems as if every post in the design world is geared toward tutorials or specific design techniques.

With that in mind, I set about creating Project Palace for web designers and project managers who want to hone in on their project management skills.

The type of articles on Project Palace, which are currently handpicked by me from select sources, will range from specific project management techniques to more general self management articles. It will not become another generic freelancing or tutorial site, I promise you that.

New posts are now up on Project Palace and the gates are open. Please feel free to check it out, and please do subscribe to the RSS feed. And of course, if you have articles you want to feature on Project Palace, use the “Submit Article” link in the footer. There’s a lot of growth potential with this, so come back and check for daily and weekly updates.

Visit Project Palace

I’ve written in the past about planning effective web design milestones, so now I want to delve into the actual elements that make up a good milestone. Milestones should be the meat of your project process for any web design or development engagement. They constitute your game plan and provide a clear roadmap for you and your client.

Since milestones are very much like goals, they should follow the SMART routine: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. I’ll discuss how you can apply SMART plus five other traits to your milestones to make them actionable and effective.

If you’re like me, each new web design project looks like a fresh adventure to spin your creative wheels on. There are new challenges and ideas that get the mind buzzing. Sadly, this momentary bliss falls apart as I start thinking about everything it’s going to take to finish the project. My mind stops buzzing and goes into shut down mode. All of a sudden, I don’t even want to look at the project anymore.

That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but projects do introduce a bit of stress and worry. This can lead us to procrastination, unhappiness and reduced quality in our output.

Fortunately, all of those things are avoidable and I’m going to explain how.

2009 was a great year in which I accomplished more than any other year before. However, the goal of this post is not to recount past achievements. Instead, I want to focus on what I did wrong in 2009 so that not only can I plan for my own changes in 2010, but hopefully help others avoid the mistakes I made as well.

For those who aren’t traveling over the holidays this season, this time represents a rare opportunity to get things done. Clients leave town, email is at a minimum and people don’t really expect much to get done.

Use this precious holiday time to get some critical project activities taken care of.

Web design is an exciting field to be involved with. Many times, clients are relatively new to having a professional online presence, which leaves us a lot of room to be creative. The downside, however, is lack of content. Organizations that haven’t had a good web site before don’t have the copy needed to propel their new site.

The problem goes from bad to worse when we reach the end of the project only to realize there isn’t any good content. This is the content crunch and it can delay your projects indefinitely.

How can you avoid the content crunch? Below I’ve outlined some simple and effective tips to stop this problem dead in its tracks before it brings the project down.

Most successful web design projects are organized into a system of milestones with each one representing a critical piece of the project. Milestones are simple in concept, but they can be tricky to nail down.

For example, how specific should we get with the milestones? If we get too specific, we risk breaking the project down into a chaotic mess of little chunks. However, if we aren’t specific enough, the deliverables become unknown and nothing gets done.

Finding the right balance is key. It takes practice and persistence, and it demands a lot of discipline from the designer or project manager. Milestones also vary from project to project. Larger projects require more milestones while smaller projects may only need a handful.

In my experience with many small, mid-sized and large projects, I’ve created a base list of milestones that I typically work with and adjust for my projects.