For marketing and digital teams, the end of the year means more than just a new date to remember — it often means conversations and planning about what the new year will bring — from goals and projects, to exciting new and big ideas.
But before you begin asking for quotes, issuing an RFP, or planning the development timeline, you'll want to take account of the little things that can derail a project — things like proper timing, internal strategy sharing, finding the right people, and shared goals.
First, remember that timing is everything. Sure, you're already thinking about budget and approval before your web project even starts. But aside from this internal sign-off, getting the timing right also includes thinking through other strategic needs and how they might disrupt or derail a project. For example, onboarding a new team lead or rebranding during a new web project can cause confusion, rework, or stalls in the timeline. What's more, hard deadlines and time constraints need to be communicated from the start to prevent you and your development team from facing time crunch or pushing to compromise the project's outcome.
Second, while your web partner will take the lead on much of the heavy lifting for the new site build, your strategic input is vital. You will provide direction, align on tasks, and give key insight that help make the new project a success — things like a strategy for new content, thoughts on the technical stack, and insights into processes and workflows. All of these things will help a web team form a content model and strategy that is unique to your team and solves key problems for you.
Of course, your new web project is not just for site users — it will also affect people and departments across your organization in different ways. Some will feel that effect more than others, but they will all have perspectives on features and functionality. Your web team wants to hear from them in the beginning — after all, they're creating a tool meant to enable your team, and so they'll look to you to help bring the right people to the conversation.
It's tempting to be excited at this point — your entire team is involved and helping move things forward! But it's important to make sure this new group of voices is filtered through the power or project management. Your web team wants to hear everyone, but needs a consistent and main point of contact or project manager to remain active and involved throughout the rest of the project. This person connects all of the different teams with the right people in your organization, so when work begins on integrations, testing, and ongoing feedback, there's a single collection point.
Finally, it's helpful to know what everyone is working toward. Your web team will bring expertise in web development and best practices, but they'll look to you to help pair that work with the metrics that matter to you. Your site is being built to move the needle, so it's important to communicate which way you'd like the needle to move! Prior to starting the project, make sure your team revisits and documents the expectations and goals that support internal direction.
In our 20 years of business, we've learned from projects and have discovered a few indicators that can add chaos to a project that sometimes our clients don't realize or plan for. As a guide, we help clients get in front of these and anticipate where we might run into roadblocks.