Six Steps to Updating Your Website Part 2: What and Who Is Involved in My Website Project?
Redesigning, updating or even launching your website is no small task. We understand the pressure to stay ahead of the curve and exceed the expectations of your customers can be immense, so we’re running a six-part blog series here on the Discerning Digital blog to guide you through the thinking, planning and delivery of a website upgrade.
This week, we're focusing on one of the most critical parts of your project - deciding what work is actually involved, and the people you need to engage with to do it.
We've even created a quick guide to delivering your website project for you to download, take away and get started with today.
If you're reading this post, chances are you have read Part 1: How to Plan and Prepare Your Website Update. (If not, catch up here.)
The Work
Our experience has shown that the initial stage of any website project, from a design refresh or update to the creation of a brand new site, can present key areas of risk. The good news is that we’ve also discovered a few practical things you can do at this point to save yourself some precious time and money.
Creating a sitemap and wireframe can help you to mitigate these risks by making it easy to keep track of multiple changes to your plan and help you communicate these changes to your key stakeholders. This should also give you a clear idea of who you need to engage with to deliver the work. Our quick guide will give you in-depth guidance on how to create these, as well as some useful tools we've used.
Your Cast of Characters
People involved in the building and design of websites approach them differently to the typical website user. Think of the difference as akin to the difference between you and an architect walking into the same building.
You will walk in, using the doors and walkways without paying much attention. The architect will walk into the same building and begin assessing everything from structure and safety to signage and room sizes.
This architect is your web developer, designer or other member of your website team, focused on how everything works below the surface. It's your job to understand how to communicate with this team.
Communication, Communication, Communication
The success of your website project will depend on two things: how well you can engage the people you need to deliver the work, and how successfully you communicate progress to your key stakeholders.
With key roles and responsibilties worked out, hold regular progress meetings to ensure the project doesn’t become unruly or derailed.This way, you’ll be better equipped to share important updates with key stakeholders from your CEO or MD, to your HR director. Even better, you'll be on the way to delivering a risk-controlled, successful website project. Our guide outlines the cast of characters you may need to engage and how to get the best from them.
Download our quick guide to delivering website projects, with more in-depth tools, tips and suggestions concerning the 'what' and 'who' of your project.
Next Week
So you've done the planning and you know what to expect during production - what's next? Part 3 of our Six Steps to Updating Your Website will answer that thorny but common question: how much will it cost to update my website?