Planning your web project – a straightforward product development process
11th January, 2010 by Alick
When I work on any online project, I always try and apply the same process to it, whatever the size of the undertaking. This process is based largely on one I used at Yahoo! In my experience, the trick to being able to use this successfully is to apply it in such a way that you don’t get bogged down or overwhelmed by process. For example, in some projects one of the stages detailed below could be a conversation, in another, it might be a 50 page document.
Stages of the Process
In most instances, we’d expect prospective clients to come to us with 1 and 2 below:-
1 Ideate
What’s the core creative idea for the site?
2 Define Market Requirements
What are the requirements of the website? (in essence this is similar to what is covered in the miggle.co.uk client briefing form) What’s the market? Who are the competitors? On what criteria will the website be judged a success? What do budgets and timescales look like?
You can find more information on writing your brief here.
Stage 3 and 4 depends on the size of the project. If it’s a straightforward build in a content management system (CMS) and we’ve got a clear idea of content and hierarchy then often 3 and 4 is no more than us knowing the CMS tools comprehensively and squaring off that your requirements are met by the functionalities of the tools.
However, in larger, or bespoke projects, 3 and 4 can each also be extensive pieces of documentation. In my opinion the client should aim to be leading on as much of point 3 as possible – or calling in experts to help.
Point 4 is then the role of the company you choose to do your work. The bit in-between is the process you go through to select your supplier.
3 Define Product Requirements
Scope the product features that deliver on the concept and the market requirements.
4 Define Functional Specification
Detail how the product will work, detailing how and by what technologies the project would be delivered.
5-8 will be lead by your development team – with appropriate sign-off for clients happening during 5-7
5 Define Development Plan
Build this into a plan, which includes full costs and timescales.
6 Build
Execute on the plan.
7 Test
Test the solution.
8 Deploy
Deploy solution on production servers.
Finally, as the client, you need to work out if the project achieved on its objectives. So, there’s often going to be either between stages 8-9, or after stage 9, the plan by which you market your new development.
9 Evaluate
Measure the site’s performance against the criteria laid out in market requirements and get ready to ideate again.
How similar/dissimilar is this to processes you might use. I’d be interested to find out. Also, if you were looking at this from a client perspective, what do you think are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the process – and what would you change? I’d be interested to hear.
Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.
Related posts
- miggle.co.uk launch miggleCMS, their PHP/MySQL content management system under an open source license
- Peopleperhour – the good, bad and the ugly – getting the best from the ‘ebay for projects’
Tags: business objectives, project planning, web development, website design, website development
January 12th, 2010 at 12:06 am
This process outlined in your post is a fairly standard waterfall approach to running a web project based on the Prince 2 methodology. You do seem to have cut out a lot of the processes from the Prince 2 approach, which is a good thing!
While it works well from your perspective its maybe not so inviting for the client because by putting the oneness on them to write the brief and define the scope of the project there seems to be little room for any creative input from you, after all they are paying for your expertise. May I suggest that Point 3 and 4 is a little more collaborative between you and the client?
The other possible problem with the waterfall approach is that because you’ve left them to define the brief and signing off these and the costs before the build starts they can’t change their mind on any aspect of the site (and all clients *love* doing that!). Have you considered looking at the Agile project management methodology?
None of the points above are meant as a criticism, merely my observations based on my experience.
January 13th, 2010 at 8:08 am
Thanks for your comments Mat. The observations are welcome, I really appreciate the opportunity to engage in some discussion on it.
You are right re point 3+4 and in fact I could have drafted that better. Point 3 should be collaborative, I was just thinking about the last time I did this, where, in that example, point 3 had been led by the client. In reality, 3 should be an open process, led by who ever is best placed to ensure that product requirements meet market objectives as laid out in 2, the brief.
In that I see, in this approach, point 2, the brief, being the opportunity the client has to state market requirements, I’m quite happy for that to be led by the client. As part of that, any indication they can give on budget is helpful in determining how big an undertaking the project will be, and thus how extensive points 3 and onwards will be. I wouldn’t see costs as locked down until around stage 5, and 5-8 have got to include plenty of sign-off points and gates, where costs and timeframes might alter and minds change!
While at Y! I did look at agile – which was the most suitable methodology for many of the projects at that time. I think what I’m trying to do here is try and get a sense in client’s minds that success looks better when there’s a process which is shared and understood. A lot of projects that miggle do are quite small, so the process can become a box ticking exercise – some bigger, some to the extent where we’d pull in someone like you and ask you ‘what should the approach be?’
In the first instance though it’s about trying to move a away from that perception that moons on sticks can be delivered by asking your web designer to press the ‘make internet’ button on his/her keyboard. It’s as much about us having the process in place too, as we evolve as a company, to play our part in ensuring it’d not perceived as this either.