The first step in ensuring your company’s website overhaul is a success is to create a plan, which includes both people and strategy. Corporate websites are not built by individuals. They are complex projects requiring multiple skill sets. And, you need to have a clear strategy in place, so the project doesn’t go off the rails.
To start, make sure that design and development are included from the beginning. The sooner they are involved in the process, the better to ensure they understand all of the moving pieces. Design will look at the experience and emotional appeal of the site while development will consider performance, complexities in responsive web applications. It’s important that the people turning your goals into reality be part of the planning process. This avoids the biggest time killer: communications cycles.
Next, make sure the key steps in the process are front of mind, so they understand how each step leads to the next. Needs to functionality to resource estimates to execution plans and budgets to ROI.
Start with a Site Map. The site map is the visualization of the user journey by pages they hit and the actions they take. A simple site map will show all of the site branches and highlight anything that was missed.
Business Requirements. Business requirements are the explanations of the steps in the sitemap and the dependencies in the organization.
Here is an example:
Needs.
Dependencies.
The importance of the dependencies is recognizing whether the team manning the tools can handle the work flow or volume that the tools will enable. Prioritize what the organization can handle.
User Experience. Wireframes Only
Wireframes (the blueprint for the website) are the first step in creating the actual experience. Creating wireframes is more than just lines on a page where content goes. Wireframes are created from a deep knowledge of user psychology and behaviors by persona and platform.
Where a button should be, the color of a title, the number of fields in a form, the number of steps before gated content… all of these are steps in a user journey that have an exponential impact on website and business KPIs such as conversion rates. Wireframes also help to identify any potential gaps in the user journeys and give you better insights into the value of tools you may be interested in licensing or buying.
Functionality
Functional requirements are the technical explanations of how the needs will be met. This includes API or third party product integrations required, platform, and browser requirements (native mobile, responsive web, etc.), and the additional custom development required including the necessary languages such as Java, React.js, Node.js or ReactNative.
The functional requirements are the biggest impacts on the resource and execution plans. Changing languages, requiring complex integrations, fully responsive web applications—each of these add value and time to the website investment. Value and time that will be clear in the final step of this process, ROI.
The next phases in resource estimates, execution plans & budgets, and ROI should be looked at under 3 lenses:
Team
If you don’t have a solid resource utilization plan, now’s the time to create one. You can use google sheets to analyze time spent by function and department, average response times to support tickets and the total number of available hours by function such as UX, UI, front end UI, database design, and iOS. Human resource estimates should focus on what it will take to execute each aspect of the build.
The rules and process I follow to ensure proper planning and budgeting are as follows:
An additional benefit of the weighted estimate model is that you can look at comfort level weights to determine if a skillset or experience level is missing from your team that could save 10-50% of the project time and costs.
Tools
What tools does your company use (CMS, CRM, ESP) that will help or impede progress for the next version of the site? What platforms exist that could help meet business requirements with minimum development or design time or cost? This includes external platforms such as chatbots, video plugins.
Execution Plans & Budgets
Now it’s time to model out the options. At this point your planning sheet should show the features and functions to be implemented with a total time required. Mapping that against the available skill-sets and bandwidth you can now understand the gaps—if any—that need to be bridged. If you need to add headcount then there’s an additional step to understand how additional headcount—by option—will impact cost and release timelines.
If the team needed to be expanded, what tools and processes are in place, how long would they take and what would they cost?
Here are the three main options for expanding the team and the data needed to make a decision on the optimal path:
Add any external options to license, partner or buy tools that could increase speed to market. When comparing options against time based KPIs it’s important to have each option compared against the same units of measurement. Those units of measurement are cost, time to commercialization, and percentage of need fulfilled.
Now comes the final and most important step: ROI.
ROI
The business case is based upon the ROI. To accurately get to an ROI you need to understand stakeholder needs and KPIs against the time and cost of the options to meet those needs. This allows executives to make time vs. cost decisions. Remember, the website is one puzzle piece of the total business—even if it’s the most important piece. When senior leadership allocates budget, it is for the growth of the company, and it’s your job as the site owner to demonstrate how the site will have the greatest ROI for the company.
It’s ok if you’re wondering, “how do I get to an ROI on something that hasn’t been built yet?” Think about it this way, you’re going to get a loan for a new restaurant, how much do you need and why? When do you run out of money? When are you making enough money to support all expenses? How much do you need to spend to get to that breakeven point? These are basic questions that apply to the business value of the website, and unlike many other businesses, like a restaurant, a website can be updated or launched in pieces that create incremental value along the way.
Remember that the goal is to deliver time-based value. One option may cost more but save 180 days in ramp time providing speed to break even. Another option may provide reduced functionality but start providing incremental improvements within a week.
Now that you know what you are going to build and how it’s time to set up the project and team for success. In the next post we will run through tools and best practices for efficiency and team morale through any size project.
Also read: Digital Content Strategy: How to Make the Most of Your Website’s Assets
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Source - blog.marketo.com