Website Development Phase 2: Project Management Plan

Christian Estrellado

From my previous blog entry, we reviewed the first phase, documentation. After that phase is completed, we will need to go straight to the Planning Stage. This stage is where the bulk of the work should be completed. The old adage from Benjamin Franklin states that, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This is very true when it involves your web development projects.

Planning involves placing all the moving parts together and managing where everything belongs. For instance, if we are creating a new landing page for a marketing campaign or special functionality on a website, both stakeholder and vendor partner needs to be on the same page prior to development. This can only be done when the overall plan, timeline, deliverables, and sign-offs are met in a timely manner.

This task can be daunting without the right project management tools, e.g. Podio and Trello. Utilizing these tools can make any web development project run smoothly. Having transparent project details in real-time, will ease any tensions and doubts during development.

We will see you in the next phase, which is Development.

Redesigning Your Website Phase 1: Documentation

Christian Estrellado

The redesign of your firm’s website is one of the most crucial rebranding efforts you can undergo. The statistics of online research of companies, whether it’s desktop or mobile, are staggering.  A potential client can make an ill-advised decision of your company by your web presence and social media footprint.

With each website, you need to plan an objective for your visitor. You can funnel them through a flurry of information, or ask for the visitor’s contact information so you can start a drip marketing campaign. These results are both good, but if the website isn’t planned properly you'll miss the objective.

There is a 6 phase redesign approach for an actionable response regarding each website.  The 6 Phase Process is as follows: Documentation, Planning, Development, Testing, Implementation, and Delivery.  By following this process, you can ensure actionable insights regarding your website and your visitors.

The first phase is Documentation. This is the most crucial part of the process, as it can grant success to your project or utter failure. Documentation contains gathering all the information you need for your website, the programming and settings you require for your project, the user flow of the website, and the user experience. By gathering these items in the upfront, it will decrease confusion and the time of the project. Most importantly, by gathering the documentation in the upfront, it will decrease the chances of change orders, work that is added to or deleted from the original scope of work of a contract. This will guarantee your project being on time and on budget.

The pitfalls of not following a strict documentation phase will lead to two issues: project timeline extensions and change orders. At Estro Communications, we follow a strict timeline constraint. If we are granted a 6 week turn around, we follow it through the timeline. This only happens when the documentation is gathered upfront. The second pitfall are change orders; these are changes that are added onto the budget.

The next stage is planning and I hope to see you on the next one.