ExtremeMarkover.org Blog

 

 Why Web projects Can Stall and How to get them out of the Gate::ExtremeMarkover Update : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Why Web Projects Can Stall and How to get them out of the Gate : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If you’ve been following along with the ExtremeMarkover initiative for awhile then you may have asked yourself why the delay in getting this project through to completion.

To that end, the title of today’s post is “why Web projects can stall and how to get them out of the gate”. Before I get into the detail, let’s revisit the primary objectives of the goals of the ExtremeMarkover initiative. The primary goals of the ExtremeMarkover initiative include:

*Supporting the non-profit community with a website makeover.
*Documenting the project with an educational perspective for what we hope will be to the benefit of the profession, students studying web design, those that teach. I’m also hopeful that in turn that we can educate the customers we serve as well.

The title seems of today’s post seems appropriate enough because the project to Markover the Community Voices website was delayed. Also, the vast majority of IT projects fail. In fact, 86% by some estimates and we want to avoid that here.

As an FYI, and in the interest of education, this particular project was delayed because a lack of communication and understanding. For example,

* As the project lead, I didn’t know that the current Community Voices website is hosted on Intuits “Homestead” template base and as a result of know one telling me I couldn’t access files on the server
* Some basic assumptions were made on my part that my co lead knew the topic well enough to give me the heads up that I couldn’t access the site by FTP

The end result was not being to post Analytics code that ultimately delayed the project for months.

To support the conversation, I’ve called on the support of Jeri A Hastava, Independent We professional from Leap of Faith Web Design Cloverdale, CA.

Jeri is familiar with the ExtremeMarkover and the goals of the initiative. For the benefits of the subscribers and for those following along I asked Jeri to respond to the situation and if this ever happen to her and what did she did about it? <

Hello everyone, Bill here with the WOW. At long last, we have some great news to share regarding our commitment to support the Community Voices website markover. We have lots to do yet to roll this out but I wanted to give you heads up that the 2009 National Web Design contest participants pitched in.

Next steps:

* Contact Community Voices
* Review website work
* Select site design
* Call for participation to put it together.

If you can spare a minute, here’s a short video of the 2009 Web design contest winners.

Greetings ExtremeMarkover.org participants, volunteers, teachers and students!

If you’ve been following along with this community based effort, then you may have asked yourself if we bailed on this Extreme Markover project. We haven’t, but we are taking a methodical approaches to the project and for good reason.

Taking the advice of seasoned Web professional Lance Loveday, Lance Loveday CEO Closed Loop Marketing we decided to run Web Analytics on the current CommunityVoices website and we were surprised by the results.

As you may recall, Lance suggested that we:

- Implement Google Analytics ASAP – even before the redesign, as gathering some baseline data in that tool prior to the redesign will make the Before/After analysis go much smoother. It’s easy, free and extremely powerful. We recommend all clients install it, even if they’re already using another analytics system as well.
http://www.google.com/analytics/

As a result, we followed the advice of Lance to the tee and we’ve been patiently waiting for the stats. It’s been 60 days and the truth is we haven’t seen any traffic. As a result, we want to include search marketing into our design process. What this will mean is that we will need a follow up to the client (Community Voices) to find out their thoughts. Ideally, as Web professionals we support our clients with Web marketing as well as design. I’m hopeful that working together with the client (just as in real life) we can strategise on the next steps improving the trafffic and delivery of their valuable community services.

From a lesson plan perspective, I’ll be interviewing an ExtremeMarkover.org Web professional volunteer to explore his/her recommendations on next steps and whether or not this is a common situation when dealing with small business or non profit clients.

If you’re following along with the ExtremeMarkove.org initiative then you’re already aware that we are in the process of making over a site for the not for profit Voices of Involved Citizens Encouraging Safety based in the Boston area of MA. USA.

You also may be asking yourself if the project has been delayed. Truth is, it hasn’t been delayed but it’s been a little slow out of the gate. The primary reason for this is to allow the time for all of the players (volunteers and stakeholders) to get into place and allow me the time to interview the non-profit organization, I also have had the pleasure of interviewing a few of the volunteers that have graciously offered to support this effort. Overall, I think we are off to a great start.

As an FYI, we’ve been waiting for the last few weeks to gain the login and password access to the web hosting server where Voices of Involved Citizens Encouraging Safety current website is hosted. We’ve also been waiting on the customer or in this case the non profit to complete the requested documentation responding to our questionnaire.

Just like in real life, this isn’t always an easy task. The reasons often vary but it’s been my experience that online Web design projects are often delayed of due to time zone differences, distance, communication between buyer and seller and the process of managing customer expectations and unforeseen circumstances. The good news is that we now have access to their existing website where we plan to study or install web analytics so we can determine where the website traffic is coming from enabling us to better understand the needs of the organizations customers/constituent behavior.

I share all of this with you because:

a.) it’s a part of the design and development process or should be and
b.) because one of the primary goals for the WOW organization to support the extremarkover.org initiative is so that students and teachers from around the globe can follow along and hopefully benefit from the lessons learned in this process.

So with that in mind, what is the walk away lessons learned for this week?

* Never rush your work
* Always insist that customers play a role in the process and that includes participating in the questionnaire process
* Set expectations up front on when you plane to start the project, when you will be working on the project and when you will be able to complete the project. In short, in this initial phase you can’t communicate enough in my opinion and establishing and managing expectation with your customers will serve you well both in the short and the long term.
* Always document your conversations and keep a solid record of your communications with time and dates stamps.

Sounds pretty simple right? Well, these simple steps are often over looked even by some of the best in the business and if you learn one thing from this effort cast the items I mentioned above into stone somewhere.

Stay tuned for more detail later in the week.

An Open Letter to the Web Professional Community

From Bill Cullifer, WOW Executive Director and ExtremeMarkover.org Chair

Thank you to the many that have agreed to provide volunteer support for the ExtremeMarkover.org initiative. To insure the success of this project, I’d like establish an initial parameter in which to work from. Please note that this is intended to be a group effort. Your direct involvement and feedback is important and very much appreciated throughout the process of this project.

Like any successful Web project, outlining the desired goals, expected outcomes, assembling the team, defining the customer’s requirements is of course mission critical to the success of this project. To that end, I’d like to recap a few of the goals that that WOW organization is hopeful to accomplish.

For me personally and professionally, I am hopeful that by working together on the ExtremeMarkover.org initiative we can accomplish the following:

•An opportunity to network with peers within the Web profession worldwide while giving back to the community
•To demonstrate Web professional best practices with real world examples by making over sites for designated non-profits on a regular basis
•To utilize this initiative and the support from the community, to educate those that aspire within the Web profession and those that teach Web topics regarding our process, including but not limited to the strategies and our design and development plans for building a website from scratch
•To elevate the Web profession by demonstrating our collective professionalism and compassion for others

With all of that said, its time to place a “call for participation” regarding our next steps for the 2008 project. In other words, let’s begin the dialogue process utilizing this blog for the design, development, implementation and integration for this years selected non-profit organization. As volunteers to this effort, we invite you to participate in on the discussion.

Based on early feedback from the committee members, we have a basic framework to work with and the web address for this year’s non-profit organization. (see Community Voices )

With those resources in mind, let’s utilize this blog to establish next steps. For example, please use the comments fields on this blog to share your thoughts OK?. For starters, here’s my wish list for desired outcomes:

•Together, let’s define the scope of this project and what the outcomes that we desire will be.
•Also, let’s establish what the process and workflow will look and feel like. For example, where do we start and where do we end?
•Let’s outline and measure goals so we’ll know when we’ve met those goals.
•Let’s self select from the task (design, development, pm etc) that are required and create an organizational chart on who does what when.
•Let’s determine the amount of hours required to complete the task and commit to some kind of a timeline for completion.
•Also, let’s establish how we will communicate our progress and accomplishments. For example, since this is open to the public could this blog be utilized for communication among all involved?
•As a baseline, let’s establish an org chart of some kind to establish the required steps and to monitor the process.
•Also, lets work together to determine what additional resources or specialties that might be required to complete the ExtremeMarkover.org project.
•Together, let’s establish an action plan complete with documented time lines, division of labor our steps used etc.

Questions, comments or concerns? Please send us an e-mail at info AT extreme markover.org

Thanks in advance!