Web Project Planning Process

Mark Reichard
iData Technologies 

Introduction

This document briefly outlines the process for planning a Web project.  The key to this planning process is to start by discovering the key strategic drivers of the site (based on challenges and opportunities the organization is facing) and then explicitly mapping out how the Web project will support those goals.  For each goal, the project team should understand:

• What actions visitors to the site will take that will help the organization accomplish that goal (making a purchase, requesting a quote, etc.).  These actions are commonly called conversions.
• What the target numbers for each kind of conversion are.
• How conversions will be tracked and measured.
• What the project team will do in implementing the site to encourage conversions (e.g. promotion, search optimization, pay-per-click, etc.).
• What the target numbers for these project team actions are and how they will be tracked.
• How the overall project will be monitored and adjusted based on conversions and outputs.

Project Planning Process

Determine strategic drivers of the site

Answering these questions will help to determine what these drivers include:

•  What are the major organizational strategic concerns (market size, market share, margins, competitive pressure, capacity, quality)
  • What product or service do you provide?
  • How many employees and facilities?
  • How many customers do you have?
  • How many sales and marketing staff do you have?
  • How do you sell?  Are most clients one time or repeat?  Are new clients from advertising, direct sales, Web search or word of mouth?
  • How do financials look?
  • What are current challenges ---- need to increase sales, fulfilling orders, quality, customer service costs, competitive price pressure, competitors’ market presence, employee turnover, finding required skill sets, compliance, obsolescence
  • How do you train employees?
  • How’s quality?
  • What kind of supporting documentation do you provide (catalogs, product spec sheets, MSDS, CAD, user guides, installation instructions, schematics)
• How does the organization communicate with key stakeholders (shareholders, customers, suppliers, regulators, current and potential employees)
  • How do you advertise?
  • What is the advertising budget?
  • What does you organization print?
  • Do you send direct mail?  To whom?
  • What kind of phone calls to do you take / make?

Brainstorm content of Web initiatives

Once it is clear what the core drivers of the site project are, it is time to determine how they will be addressed through the project.  Beyond the corporate image and branding goals that are often given lots of attention when Web projects are launched, there usually exist substantial opportunities for real bottom-line savings by moving activities that are currently carried out manually to the web.  In marketing, communications and public relations, communications efforts and spending that are currently carried out through other media can be more efficiently moved to the Web.  In customer service, self-serve Web functions can decrease incoming calls and free up time for more productive activities.  In sales,  initial information sharing can be done by the site, and some pre-qualification and lead sorting can be done through Web-based inquiry forms.

Opportunities for this kind of savings are intimately related to the kind of business that's undertaking the project, and finding those opportunities can be an art as well as a science.  The tables below provide some illustration of the process that two kinds of organizations might use to look for opportunities for cost savings.  In these tables, more dots represent more opportunity.  The first table is for an IS services organization, the second for a manufacturer.

Sample Web Project Opportunity Matrix for an IT Service firm

· Intranet             *Surveys    **With programming

· Web               * With programming

· Web + search engine optimization

Sample Web Project Opportunity Matrix for a Manufacturing firm

· Intranet             *Surveys                      **With programming

· Web               *With eCommerce            **With live chat

· Web + search engine optimization

Establish goals for the project

The key to understanding whether the project has been effective is setting goals for the project and monitoring progress toward those goals.  The steps to effectively setting goals for the project include:

• Clearly define goals for the site.
  • Goals are often expressed as conversions --- site visitors converted to customers. 
  • For non-commerce sites, conversions usually have to do with site visitors taking an action (filling out contact form, submitting a resume, etc.).
• Define incremental target goals in addition to targets for conversions: overall level of site traffic, search engine position.
• Define a strategy for measuring all incremental and end goals and, as much as possible, tracking visitors through each stage.
  • From pay per click ads or organic search listings to the site, through each click on the site
  • Conversion rates for each channel (pay per click, organic, links from partners, directly entered URL)
• Define output targets (different from outcome targets above).  These are things you can directly control (amount of content, number of links to request, pay per click budget and rank for target keywords).  Clearly understand how your outputs should lead to your outcome targets.

Map out the project at a high level

Once opportunities are identified and goals are set, it is time to plan the project.  The elements of the project plan include:

• Creating a site map and information architecture
• Define site technical architecture
• Establish a budget
• Create project milestones

Design

The next step is to design the site look and feel. 

• Create site look and feel.  Site look and feel decisions can be highly subjective.  This is often (even usually) a problem because what the project sponsor likes may not be the best choice.  Make this an objective decision --- recruit 10 or more objective evaluators and present 6-10 options for look and feel with no indication at all of how the project team or sponsor feel.  Have evaluators choose their most favorite and their least favorite option and briefly explain why.  Usually there will be one or two clear winners and one or two least favorites.  Get commitment up front to go with the will of the majority --- if there are a few clear winners, use one of those.   To get evaluations, conduct a Surveymonkey survey of visitors to a current site or current clients (www.Surveymonkey.com).  For a new site or if there is not enough traffic to the site to make this viable, post a request for review to WebProNews or Google groups.  People love to provide criticism.
• Create detailed technical design

Implement the design

This is the technical work of implementing the design.

• Track the project to milestones. 
• Control scope through change management. 

Track target versus actual metrics for both outputs and outcomes.

• If output targets are not being met, evaluate whether they are realistic.  If so, examine project management.
• If output targets are being met but outcomes are not
  • Double check your assumptions.  Look for industry best practices
  • Research your logs --- does the usual path through the site suggest a problem?
  • Do empirical testing. This can be small scale and relatively low tech.  Get some objective users to test the site.
  • Usability testing. Jacob Nielson wrote that fewer than ten testers can find >60% of problems
  • Surveys --- Surveymonkey survey of site visitors (www.surveymonkey.com).  If not enough response on the site, post a request to WebProNews or Google groups.  People love to provide criticism.

About iData Technologies^TM

iData Technologies^TM is a software development and Internet business enablement firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. iData develops solutions designed to put the Web to work for our clients through Web marketing and promotion, business process automation and knowledge management. iData is the developer of the Synapse Web Suite^TM , a set of Web content management and application development tools including:

• Synapse Publisher^TM: A multilingual Web content management system, designed to put control of our clients' sites in the hands of content owners rather than IT staffs. 
• Synapse Search^TM: A fully integrated Search Engine Optimization toolkit that works with Publisher to allow iData clients to make their Web content their most powerful marketing tool. 
• Synapse CommLink^TM: a complete opt-in email communications platform that allows non-technical users to create, track and manage ethical opt-in email campaigns. CommLink^TM integrates directly with Publisher^TM to seamlessly manage the complete online communications channel 
• Synapse Event Manager^TM registration software. Event Manager^TM is a complete online events registration system that seamlessly integrates with iData's content management and opt-in email solutions.

To learn more about these software solutions and how iData can help your organization, contact iData.