Typical managerial mistakes made by the customer when developing the site
Having a great experience as a project manager on site development, both on the executor side and on the client side, I would like to highlight common mistakes made by the Client when developing the site at the management level. This material can be used as a guide to action for managers who are responsible for overseeing the development of the site, and their managers.
The fact that I had to be “on both sides of the barricades” allows you to look at the situation from different sides and try to highlight the key points that determine the course of the project.
1. Lack of clear understanding of project objectives
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Very often, when creating a website, the customer lacks a clear understanding of the goals that the project faces. And in the end, the result can be deplorable: you asked for “something”, we did “something”. A clear understanding that the site is needed only for a tick and instructions on business cards (and for many companies this is so) would save many customers from headaches and unnecessary expenses.
Remember that a site is not a collection of beautiful images on the Internet, but, above all, a marketing tool that should fulfill its purpose, and not “just be”.
It is highly recommended to conduct a pre-project study before ordering a project and to order the development of a web strategy (more about it in the paragraph about a typical project cycle), which will allow to form a certain vision of the project at all stages of its life path.
2. Incorrect assessment and allocation of the project budget
Quite often, the customer can not properly assess the project budget and correctly prioritize the aspects of work. Very often, the customer proceeds from personal preferences and well-established stereotypes (for example, “website design is not important, the main thing is information”). This is wrong, the budget should be formed on the basis of a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the project (see paragraph above). If you have determined that the main task of the site is to maintain a brand or a specific brand of product on the web, it is foolish to save on the development of a design concept.
A typical mistake is a big budget for project promotion (say, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) - and a miserable budget for the site itself. Consider investing such money in advertising, it is logical to spend a little more money on development, so that site visitors are not disappointed. The reverse is also true: it does not make sense to inflate the budget to the site if there are no goals other than, in fact, its presence.
If you have doubts about your own ability to determine the overall budget or to distribute it among its constituent parts, contact an external expert organization for advice (just not the contractor). It is desirable that this organization is not engaged in the development of sites, and specialized in consulting, otherwise its analysis may be biased.
TERMS
It is no secret that more than 80% of site development projects do not meet the deadlines set initially, and the work is delayed for a while, sometimes exceeding the schedule at times. This applies to almost all projects (both 2-3 thousand and 20-30 thousand) and development studios of any level.
We will try to highlight the key mistakes of the customer, which lead to a delay in the project:
3. Tightening the coordination of work
The main reason for delaying the deadlines on the part of the customer is the painful coordination of the work results. This is especially true of the design concept of the site. The more people on the part of the customer are involved in this process (and everyone considers himself a specialist in design), the more chaos is introduced into the project. This should be excluded - the project should have a manager in charge of all the issues on the project, as well as a clearly identified person who makes the final decisions. The developer definitely needs to provide access to both the manager and the decision maker, no matter how difficult it may be. The remaining “advisers” must be excluded from the process, because fulfilling all their wishes and comments (often unreasonable and contradictory) will delay the project for an indefinite period. This in no way concerns the stage of testing the site and identifying errors - here you need to attract the widest possible range of people to clean up all the flaws. It is necessary to clearly build a model of project interaction with the developer at the level of the company's management.
When making a design decision, it is necessary to abstract as much as possible from one’s own preferences and to think in terms of the user from Central Asia and the general adequacy of the proposed options.
Very often, the customer begins to “find fault” with the details in the design, although in fact he does not like the proposed concept in principle, but he simply cannot (or fears) express it. It is important to track this moment and offer to develop a new version. It will be easier for the developer than to spend months agreeing on non-trivial details that will not add customer satisfaction anyway. Don't lose sight of the overall vision of the project!
Another important aspect - do not let the project take its course. Very often after the first breakdown of the deadlines in stages, the customer relaxes and stops responding promptly to the situation. This can lead to huge delays in timing, as the developer is often inclined to do the same. The project can get into the “dead center” when everyone has lost interest in him. Moving things around from this point can be a huge effort.
4. Improper organization of the preparation of materials on the site
The second most important aspect that influences the delay in terms is the wrong organization of the process of preparing materials for the site. Very often, the customer approaches this process too optimistically, promising to provide materials in the shortest possible time. This is an illusion. As a rule, the preparation of such materials is an additional obligation of people engaged in something within the company. Precisely because it is optional (and also lack of motivation)
Try to allocate some time employees directly on the preparation of materials on the site. Set a hard deadline and make an important decision - if the content is not ready by the deadline, it will never be ready. From the developer’s side, it will also be absolutely justified to establish a certain period after which he will not receive any materials from you, and their absence will not affect the process of coordinating his work.
Collect the finished material and order the copywriting of the missing, if necessary (large studio developers will gladly offer you their help). Do not forget to provide the developer with the most complete information, he will always be able to brush off the superfluous.
“A good situation” - when at the time of the project start a client manager comes to the studio and brings a pile of papers and a high CD rack with information (all that he was able to collect). It is right.
The developer does not deceive you when he says that materials are extremely important for his work. It really is. The ideal situation is 100% availability of materials at the time of the start of design work. The availability of materials at this point will allow you to significantly speed up the process, as well as deprive the developer of a typical excuse “there were no materials, therefore, delayed deadlines”, although, as a rule, this is not an excuse, but the real reason.
5. Lack of work deadline
Hard deadline, which is known to you and the developer, is an excellent means of motivating project activities from both sides. Its presence allows you to brush off the little things and the long coordination of minor points, to form a focus on results. If there is no hard deadline, think of it (up to the indication of financial sanctions in case of non-compliance). The lack of deadline will relax both you and the developer.
6. Optimism of the contractor in the preparation of the schedule
Quite often, when approving a calendar plan, the developer considers the “ideal situation” and indicates too little time. Ideal projects do not happen, it must be remembered. The calendar plan must be assessed for general adequacy, it is necessary to check for the presence of stages for the coordination of work and the signing of documents, receipt of payment, etc.
In addition, it must be remembered that the short terms in the plan are a competitive advantage for the developer, and he could have intentionally understated them at the commercial offer stage. This can be fought by writing tough sanctions in the contract, as well as a proposal to revise the initial plan, for example, following the results of the preparation of the TK.
7. Violation of the typical work cycle
Very often, when working on a site, a typical project development cycle is violated. This can occur both at the initiative of the developer and the customer. The process, if possible, should go sequentially through the cycle. Since very often the result of the previous stage affects the next one, it is necessary to continue the work only after coordinating and approving the previous stage.
For example, a customer often requires starting in parallel with the design stage the assembly phase and layout of the site. This is fundamentally wrong, because when you make changes to the design layouts, the whole concept of the resource can change, and all the work done in the subsequent steps will go down the drain.
A typical project run cycle looks like this:
The fact that I had to be “on both sides of the barricades” allows you to look at the situation from different sides and try to highlight the key points that determine the course of the project.
1. Lack of clear understanding of project objectives
')
Very often, when creating a website, the customer lacks a clear understanding of the goals that the project faces. And in the end, the result can be deplorable: you asked for “something”, we did “something”. A clear understanding that the site is needed only for a tick and instructions on business cards (and for many companies this is so) would save many customers from headaches and unnecessary expenses.
Remember that a site is not a collection of beautiful images on the Internet, but, above all, a marketing tool that should fulfill its purpose, and not “just be”.
It is highly recommended to conduct a pre-project study before ordering a project and to order the development of a web strategy (more about it in the paragraph about a typical project cycle), which will allow to form a certain vision of the project at all stages of its life path.
2. Incorrect assessment and allocation of the project budget
Quite often, the customer can not properly assess the project budget and correctly prioritize the aspects of work. Very often, the customer proceeds from personal preferences and well-established stereotypes (for example, “website design is not important, the main thing is information”). This is wrong, the budget should be formed on the basis of a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the project (see paragraph above). If you have determined that the main task of the site is to maintain a brand or a specific brand of product on the web, it is foolish to save on the development of a design concept.
A typical mistake is a big budget for project promotion (say, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) - and a miserable budget for the site itself. Consider investing such money in advertising, it is logical to spend a little more money on development, so that site visitors are not disappointed. The reverse is also true: it does not make sense to inflate the budget to the site if there are no goals other than, in fact, its presence.
If you have doubts about your own ability to determine the overall budget or to distribute it among its constituent parts, contact an external expert organization for advice (just not the contractor). It is desirable that this organization is not engaged in the development of sites, and specialized in consulting, otherwise its analysis may be biased.
TERMS
It is no secret that more than 80% of site development projects do not meet the deadlines set initially, and the work is delayed for a while, sometimes exceeding the schedule at times. This applies to almost all projects (both 2-3 thousand and 20-30 thousand) and development studios of any level.
We will try to highlight the key mistakes of the customer, which lead to a delay in the project:
3. Tightening the coordination of work
The main reason for delaying the deadlines on the part of the customer is the painful coordination of the work results. This is especially true of the design concept of the site. The more people on the part of the customer are involved in this process (and everyone considers himself a specialist in design), the more chaos is introduced into the project. This should be excluded - the project should have a manager in charge of all the issues on the project, as well as a clearly identified person who makes the final decisions. The developer definitely needs to provide access to both the manager and the decision maker, no matter how difficult it may be. The remaining “advisers” must be excluded from the process, because fulfilling all their wishes and comments (often unreasonable and contradictory) will delay the project for an indefinite period. This in no way concerns the stage of testing the site and identifying errors - here you need to attract the widest possible range of people to clean up all the flaws. It is necessary to clearly build a model of project interaction with the developer at the level of the company's management.
When making a design decision, it is necessary to abstract as much as possible from one’s own preferences and to think in terms of the user from Central Asia and the general adequacy of the proposed options.
Very often, the customer begins to “find fault” with the details in the design, although in fact he does not like the proposed concept in principle, but he simply cannot (or fears) express it. It is important to track this moment and offer to develop a new version. It will be easier for the developer than to spend months agreeing on non-trivial details that will not add customer satisfaction anyway. Don't lose sight of the overall vision of the project!
Another important aspect - do not let the project take its course. Very often after the first breakdown of the deadlines in stages, the customer relaxes and stops responding promptly to the situation. This can lead to huge delays in timing, as the developer is often inclined to do the same. The project can get into the “dead center” when everyone has lost interest in him. Moving things around from this point can be a huge effort.
4. Improper organization of the preparation of materials on the site
The second most important aspect that influences the delay in terms is the wrong organization of the process of preparing materials for the site. Very often, the customer approaches this process too optimistically, promising to provide materials in the shortest possible time. This is an illusion. As a rule, the preparation of such materials is an additional obligation of people engaged in something within the company. Precisely because it is optional (and also lack of motivation)
Try to allocate some time employees directly on the preparation of materials on the site. Set a hard deadline and make an important decision - if the content is not ready by the deadline, it will never be ready. From the developer’s side, it will also be absolutely justified to establish a certain period after which he will not receive any materials from you, and their absence will not affect the process of coordinating his work.
Collect the finished material and order the copywriting of the missing, if necessary (large studio developers will gladly offer you their help). Do not forget to provide the developer with the most complete information, he will always be able to brush off the superfluous.
“A good situation” - when at the time of the project start a client manager comes to the studio and brings a pile of papers and a high CD rack with information (all that he was able to collect). It is right.
The developer does not deceive you when he says that materials are extremely important for his work. It really is. The ideal situation is 100% availability of materials at the time of the start of design work. The availability of materials at this point will allow you to significantly speed up the process, as well as deprive the developer of a typical excuse “there were no materials, therefore, delayed deadlines”, although, as a rule, this is not an excuse, but the real reason.
5. Lack of work deadline
Hard deadline, which is known to you and the developer, is an excellent means of motivating project activities from both sides. Its presence allows you to brush off the little things and the long coordination of minor points, to form a focus on results. If there is no hard deadline, think of it (up to the indication of financial sanctions in case of non-compliance). The lack of deadline will relax both you and the developer.
6. Optimism of the contractor in the preparation of the schedule
Quite often, when approving a calendar plan, the developer considers the “ideal situation” and indicates too little time. Ideal projects do not happen, it must be remembered. The calendar plan must be assessed for general adequacy, it is necessary to check for the presence of stages for the coordination of work and the signing of documents, receipt of payment, etc.
In addition, it must be remembered that the short terms in the plan are a competitive advantage for the developer, and he could have intentionally understated them at the commercial offer stage. This can be fought by writing tough sanctions in the contract, as well as a proposal to revise the initial plan, for example, following the results of the preparation of the TK.
7. Violation of the typical work cycle
Very often, when working on a site, a typical project development cycle is violated. This can occur both at the initiative of the developer and the customer. The process, if possible, should go sequentially through the cycle. Since very often the result of the previous stage affects the next one, it is necessary to continue the work only after coordinating and approving the previous stage.
For example, a customer often requires starting in parallel with the design stage the assembly phase and layout of the site. This is fundamentally wrong, because when you make changes to the design layouts, the whole concept of the resource can change, and all the work done in the subsequent steps will go down the drain.
A typical project run cycle looks like this:
- 1) Defining the goals and objectives of the project
2) Determination of positioning, analysis of information on products / services and target audience
3) Development of a common web strategy for the company (project).
The web strategy should include information on the goals and objectives of the resource, Central Asia, analysis of competitors should be present, recommendations on the structure and functionality of the site should be present, as well as a rough plan for further promotion of the resource (analysis of competitors' actions, sample activities and budgets) should be developed. Drawing up a similar strategy significantly helps at all stages of the life cycle of your project. It makes sense to order the development of a strategy external to your contractor expert structure.
4) Development of the Technical Specification (TOR) for the site, the final budget and work schedule.
The task of the TK is to define in maximum detail all aspects of the work on the site, to create a single vision (this is very important) of the project and the customer and the performer.
5) Website design concept development
6) Development of the layout of the main page
7) Development of layouts for internal pages
8) HTML layout of the site
9) Development of animated FLASH-elements
10) Building a site based on a CMS system and developing additional functionality
11) Content content of the site, batch data entry into the database
12) Run a pilot version of the site, testing, troubleshooting
13) Website transfer to hosting, testing, site opening
Please note that in this cycle there are no points related to the preparation of the necessary information and coordination of the stages of work.
It must be remembered that the process of developing sites is subject to generally accepted principles of project management and software development. According to these principles, it is recommended that, if possible, the process be conducted iteratively, correcting one's own actions as one gains experience and new knowledge on the project. Working on a large project, it is extremely useful to create and debug the work of the light version, gradually modifying the new functionality.
8. Creating a “monument site”
Another typical mistake of the customer is to assume that after the creation of the site his work on the development of the Internet direction ends. This is fundamentally not true. Site creation - the point "zero" for its existence. In order for the site to become an effective marketing tool, it is necessary to develop a strategy for its promotion, as well as on an ongoing basis to work on updating it, monitoring the state, making improvements and improvements, and developing it.
In the network there are many examples of beautiful “sites-monuments”, which are not paid attention from their owners. They hang “dead weight”, without bringing any benefit and nullifying all the efforts spent on their development.
A small example - most customers want to see a news feed on their website, which is published on the main page. At the same time, most companies do not have enough strength to keep it up to date (or there is simply no proper amount of information). Determine this moment at the design stage, because there is nothing worse than a website with news from last year on the first page - it instantly creates a feeling of “resource abandonment” for the user. It is better not to post news at all, as a rule, they are not very interesting to the user.
SMALL ERRORS
You can also select a number of smaller errors, usually made by the customer, consideration of which in this case may be interesting:
9. Domain registration by a studio or personally by a project manager.
Often such a question as domain registration is left to the developer, and the developer registers the domain for himself. In the event of a conflict (especially at the stage when the project is already running and has some kind of citation index, and the mail and address of the site are listed in the promotional products). The company contractor may play this trump card, threatening to remove the site and mail server from your domain. The same applies to the registration of the domain in person to the name of the manager on your part. If the relationship does not develop, he will be able to take it away, leaving you with nothing. Therefore, it is necessary to make sure that the domain was registered specifically for your company as a legal entity.
10. Most prepaid freelancer
When working with a freelancer, you need to remember. That receiving a large prepayment extremely relaxes a person and reduces his motivation to almost zero. This sad fact is confirmed by many years of experience. Do not give prepayment to private owners for more than 10-20% percent, even if you are very confident in it. This does not apply to working with large studios - receiving an advance payment of 40-60% percent of the project budget is the norm for the market.
11. Lack of control rollbacks.
We live in Russia, and we should not forget about the existing practice of kickbacks everywhere. If your manager, whom you commissioned to create the site, strongly recommends a specific artist, and you have doubts about the reasonableness of the estimates presented, you need to check it. Send a request to 2-3 companies operating in the range of your total budget, and compare them with the proposed estimate. You may be unpleasantly surprised.
I hope the above facts will help to avoid common mistakes and make the process of developing a site painless and interesting.
Terekhov Andrey (andrey@terekhov.ru)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4657/
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