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.
