A new website is exciting. Making sure the project goes smoothly means forming a connection with the development team. A great development team will guide you through the process step by step. Here are six ways to help form that connection and create a long-lasting relationship.
Process is Important
- Business Goals. The reason for any new website changes should be to focus on reaching business goals. A development team should help you narrow those down so they can tailor each feature to your company's goals. The design and content strategy should give you a good return on investment.
- Milestones. Understanding how a project is segmented tells you about what a development team values. Once establishing business goals in the discovery/architecture phase, the following stages should run smoothly. Each phase of development should have clear deliverables that map directly to the outcome of the project's goals.
- Communication. The scope of work provides a specific game plan for the website, but consistent feedback keeps everyone in the loop as the project progresses. No one likes surprises, so we provide a way for you to know what we are working on during each development phase.
- Ongoing Updates. Seeing each milestone completion is reassuring, but it is also nice to see the completion and progress of individual tasks. We use ClikCollab, our project management software, to keep track of each action item. This way, everyone involved knows the progress and sees how it contributes to the end goal.
- User experience. Development gets the functionality of each feature, but testing makes sure the end user can easily navigate through the site. Understanding the way users interact with the site helps to create a testing plan that makes sure the site is straightforward.
- Handoff. The project itself is an important stage to work through, but the company should be equipped to manage the site independently upon completion. Training at the end is used to walk administrative users through the site and show them the basic functionality. The client also receives a training document to be used for reference and in teaching employees, quickly and efficiently, to use the site.
Summary
Each individual deliverable should line up with the business goals a company seeks to achieve. Seeing the progress unfold one step at a time lets everyone how each task fits into the end goal. Testing the user experience means development lines up with business goals. Training equips the company to manage the site's content and tools to ensure a good return on investment. All of these communication tips make for a seamless project that forms a long-lasting relationship.
Do you have any tools or techniques you prefer? Let me know in the comments!
Photo by Sean McMenemy