Imagine, for a second, the pandemic is no longer a thing. You can finally get out of the house and travel. You plan to go on an adventure; backpacking through Europe, going on a safari in Africa, or maybe walking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. How are you preparing for that trip? Do you have a plan, budget, and schedule paid time off? Have you been listening to experienced adventurers and reading travel blogs? Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone plan and guide you on this trip, making sure you experience all the sites on your must-see list? Of course, it would! But, what does all this have to do with digital strategy and project management? I’m getting there.
At WebDevStudios, our digital strategy team and project management office (PMO) take the responsibility of planning and organizing off your plate, just as a travel agent or guide would when planning your adventure. We partner alongside you, the client, to map out your website project. We uncover your site’s needs, create a detailed plan, help keep it on track, and ensure it reaches completion within your budget and on time.
Digital Strategy
We view digital strategy as the process to uncover the real goals and objectives of your website in order to make a detailed project plan. We pose questions like:
- What will the site look like?
- How will it function?
- What’s the timeline?
- How much will it cost?
Quite often, answers to questions like these provide the team with the right information to build out your project.
Project Management
Project management (PM) is the guide that helps the project follow the plan from execution to completion. We leverage not only our skills and experience but use PM processes and methodologies to get your web project to the finish line; meeting the agreed acceptance criteria, keeping it within budget and launching according to your deadlines.
Project Life Cycle
It all starts with a signed contract. The digital strategy team, along with your own team, will hold many collaborative calls; poking and prodding to find the true goals of the website. They want to understand the audience, the functionality, the look, etc. From here they build out a detailed plan and timeline.
The digital strategy team then meets with the PM of the project and those engineers that are building the site. They call this the ‘internal handoff,’ but don’t think this is where strategy steps away. They are around until the project is complete.
The PM on your project then watches closely; checking the work against the project plan, making sure the team stays on track and doesn’t get derailed. When questions come up during the build, the digital strategy team is right there with details on how it should work.
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.
-Benjamin Franklin
Skipping the Process
What happens if you don’t want to use digital strategy and project management in your website project? Well, just imagine going on that trip mentioned at the beginning of this post without a plan. Would you find all the sites without a map? Unlikely. Would you find all the sights within your timeline out there? Probably not. Would you overspend? I bet!
Same goes for embarking on a website project. We all want to just start a project and get the perfect product. Without the proper planning of both digital strategy and project management, you will quickly find yourself constantly fixing things to meet your expectations, which ultimately costs time and money.
For example…
You want a simple block, logo, menu item that wasn’t originally planned for. Now, you have to find a place on your website for this new item.
It’s not just a matter of dropping it wherever. You have to bring in a designer, look at the placement, and maybe even move other features, have a call or two, develop it, and get approval from stake holders. Any change that takes place after the planning process can have a domino effect and push the timeline or require more resources, which ultimately costs you more money.
Every website project needs both digital strategy and project management.
Both digital strategy and project management are so incredibly important for any website project. We draft out what you really need and help keep the project from derailing. We ultimately are your biggest advocates and want to see your project succeed.
Need a team with an excellent strategy and project management team to help build your next website? Work with us!
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