Keeping a Project Moving

A web development project is deemed successful if it meets its goals, but also if it's delivered on time. This is a collaborative process and requires that both the web development company and the client are in sync during the course of the project. There are many hurdles to overcome in order to have a project come out within the original timeline set forth, but the following are the most common pitfalls to look out for from the client perspective. If these issues are kept under control, the project will very likely be delivered on time and maybe even sooner than expected!

Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

Soliciting ideas and making sure that everyone has input sounds great, and I think to some extent it's important that everyone's ideas are captured and reviewed for incorporation into a project, however, there needs to be a clear definition between asking for feedback and ideas and directing. Appointing a "committee" to work with your web development company rather than a single point of contact is a recipe for disaster. In my experience, this lends itself to a host of problems including (but not limited to) ridiculously inflated timelines and a lack of focus on the end goal and objectives.

The best way to counter this is to assign a single person from your company as the project coordinator. This person should be responsible for:

• Getting Input - Gathering input from key people in the organization. This includes ideas, expectations, approvals, etc...
• Staying Focused - Making sure that ideas and feedback are applicable to the current project at hand and nothing else. This means separating ideas into feedback for the project at hand, feedback for future projects (outside the scope), or feedback that isn't relevant.
• Communicating - Working with the web development company to answer questions, convey feedback, and provide needed materials to keep the project moving. Also, keeping the organization up to date as far as the status of the project is important here.

Ideally, this project coordinator should have the power to approve things and make a good number of decisions on their own - without needing to differ to others.

Feature Creep

It's impossible to think of everything for a project in the planning stages. It doesn't matter if you've been planning for hours or months, invariably there are going to be ideas that come up during the development of a project. It's important to be able to determine how these ideas come into play with the project. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Is this idea/feature covered within the scope of the project?
• Is this idea/feature critical to the launch of the initial project or can it wait for a "phase 2"?

Ideally, all new ideas and features should wait until after the initial project is complete. This keeps the timeline solid and allows the project to have more defined milestones. These new ideas and features are no doubt important, so keep a list. Once the initial project is launched, schedule the new items right away as a follow up project.

I've seen all too often, where more and more features keep getting added, and before you know it, the timeline has slipped and caused the project to take 2-4 times longer to complete and there's nothing live to show for it. Don't let this happen to you. Stay focused and stay on track.

Content

Content is one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of putting together a website. More often than not, content tends to be one of those things that is put off until the last minute, and invariably holds up the launch of a project. The problem is that good content takes good time to put together. For such an important piece of the puzzle, it amazes me how easily this task gets put off to the sidelines (However, I have a bit of first-hand experience on this too. The last revision of our website could have easily launched two weeks earlier if I would've scheduled the task of content writing a bit higher on the priority list).

The best advice I can give is to start writing content early on in the process. Even while you're getting proposals from web development companies, and before you've made a decision on whom to go with. It's never too early to start working on your content. If you've got a lot of content to write, break it up into small sections and schedule time to work on it over a period of several days or several weeks. If you've got a ton of content, see if you can get some help within the company and spread the task out between several people. Keep in mind that content can always be refined and updated, so don't worry about it being perfect the first time. It's more important to get something down now, and then it can be reviewed and edited later.

Approvals

Approvals are another big hurdle in getting a project done. A project will be taken through several phases during its lifetime. At the end of each of these phases, an approval is usually required to move on. This approval stage is in place to:

• Make sure that work doesn't have to be redone later
• Make sure that everyone is satisfied with the results at the given milestone
• Be compared to the timeline to estimate when the project will be complete

It's important that the organization be able to make the appropriate time to review and provide feedback on the deliverables and be able to issue approvals in a timely manor. The two biggest things that tend to hold up this process are:

• Not giving the review and approval tasks enough of a priority
• Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen (see above)

Approving things on-time keeps things moving.

Final Thoughts

I've seen projects take up to 4 times what they should have because of these issues, so take my advice, and don't let these problems derail your efforts. Collaboration and communication are key, and with the right focus, your project can be a success!