"To create good stuff, subject won’t matter" — by Locomotive ＜vol.4＞
The 4th interview of WORKS GOOD! MAGAZINE is digital agency Locomotive from Montreal in Canada, who recently won numerous awards in the Awwwards, CSS Design Awards, etc. We seek out the methods behind their working style, as well as how they an continue to produce great quality content!
Question 1：
Please tell us about your company.
We Locomotive is digital agency based in Montreal, Canada.
We founded it in 2006 and we have 20 staff members who are all experienced in digital projects. We prefer mature experienced people rather than inexperienced staff. Over time we realized that we prefer people that have a bit more experience, that can really engage with clients, because we feel that we need to explain a lot to people. We need to explain our recommendations, and this is why we need people that are actually mature enough to engage people who don’t know much about the digital world.
We’ve been mainly working on three types of web sites. The first is municipal, for example building a website for a city. The second type is the corporate website for any type of company, it can go from a loyal platform to big construction. And the final one would be sports. We were first approached by Canadian swim team, then by Canadian rugby team, then volley ball team and so on.
Every time we make a website, we really want to make an amazing, seamless experience for every platform that will be used. So whether it’s on iPhone, iPad, or desktop, we are working hard to make a seamless experience between those three.
Question 2：
Do you work through with other agencies?
This is very good question to describe our company. We have people that manage the project, we have some designers, artistic directors, creative directors, and creative developers that will make the content and the user experience, as well as the developer that will do the back end.
We also have our own content management system, which is called CHARCOAL, you can find it on the web. It’s open source, there is no license, so you can access this CMS. Instead of using WordPress, we wanted to have a goal of something for the whole team, the same work that will build us. Then I think people become more engaged in each work project since it’s like their baby. So this is a good way to keep people together, working on projects that they are proud of. So we are expecting to make the best CMS, which is open source with no licensing, it’s really a well-developed platform.
“Thanks to our friends and roommates KBS Agency for pictures!”
— by Locomotive
Question 3：
When your team starts a new project, what work process do your members follow?
When the project kicks off, it starts from the UXS, and the content strategy. So this is what we really focus on, making sure we fully understand what type of content needs to be delivered, then we will work on UXS just to make sure we understand what type of customer is the person we will work for. Then we will move on to UI direction and prototyping. This is a really important fact, we start prototyping very early, because we really want the person to fall into his/her mobile, or onto his/her computer, so we really want to have some small animation to make him/her understand, we want to present an experience. So we do prototyping really soon at the early stage.
※UXS = User Experience Strategy
Question 4：
Who has the decision making power in your projects? Who decides “OK, we will take this job”?
It’s a good question, I think we really want to have projects that stimulate people. This site "Major", about gold mining, that we just launched last month, might be a good example. Even though the subject is not that amazing, we would rather work with people who are motivated, even with less budget rather than people who will be not fun to work with. It’s not money oriented.
Question 5：
You said, “it’s not money oriented”, so there are no jobs that your team has to do for money?
Ten years ago things were different, so we did take some projects because of money. But now, we want to take jobs for better reasons, and we often say no, obviously. We prefer that the team stay happy rather than make a lot of money.
Question 6：
When you make your team’s schedule, do you calculate by hours or days or something else?
We like to calculate by hours. We calculate an hour for 100 dollars, so if we have 3000 dollars for a project, we have 300 hours. So, we are really trying to be transparent with the client, letting them know that this is a 300 hour project. When half the time is left, in this case 150 hours, I will ring a bell saying we’re half done the project or we are not half done, so either we work faster, or we will charge 15% extra.
We always back up with 15% because there is a lot of unknown factors in a project, we don’t know who will be the client’s project manager and they might leave or change half way through the project.
Question 7：
How do you guys manage your schedule to fit the project?
Being honest, I think we just leave, I think people just say I’m going do that tomorrow. Because, we are able to manage our client’s expectations, and we don’t say, we’re going to be delivering the project faster than we are able, we take enough time to make sure we’re able to deliver it even though we finish work at 6pm.
We don’t take on too many projects so that we are overwhelmed, rather we try to the pick right ones or the ones best for the team. So we can say that we take on fewer projects than others, maybe.
Question 8：
What kind of working environment does your company provide for your employees?
Sometimes, we do have overtime work but not often, and we are trying to provide an environment where people can go home by 6pm.
Also, we’ve been having 5 or 6 Fridays off during the summer time. We call those days “Friday Locomotive”, and we have some activities, where we either go to some member’s house where there’s a pool, or we go for a beach party, or we just go somewhere to have a fun together without being at work.
So we are always trying to be inventive, we always have a cake for everyone’s birthday, and we try to have champagne for every project we go live with. Just clinking a glass of champagne together, it’s like saying “congratulation!” to the people who have been working hard on the project.
Please check the play part of our website to see other activities we are doing!
Question 9：
Do you have any welfare benefits other than above?
This might be not count as welfare but, in our team, each member can choose if they prefer to get more salary or holidays. If a person wants more holidays rather than money, we reduce their salary, and if a person wants money rather than holidays, we reduce their number of days off. It all depends on how each member wants to handle it, so no one makes the same salary here.
Question 10：
Finally, as a company, what do you believe is the most important requirement for doing ”good work”?
I think putting the right people in the right place is very important. If we understand what our client is expecting of our team and understand our communication goals, as well as never giving up on challenges, we can achieve our goal of creating good websites.
This article was published at the time of release in April 2017.
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