Mastering Web Projects – Tips & Insights
June 16, 2023
You’ve got a website project on your hands, right? Big or small, it’s a significant endeavor, and it can feel like you’re steering a ship through a storm. That’s where project management helps. It’s like the rudder for your project, giving direction, coordination, and keeping things afloat.
What’s the Big Deal About Project Management Anyway?
It doesn’t matter if your project is a five-pager for a local business or a complex web application for a multinational corporation. Project management is the secret sauce that keeps all the ingredients – timelines, resources, personnel – in harmony.
It might be tempting to don the captain’s hat and manage it all yourself. But you have other things in your hands. And maybe you’re not well-versed in web technologies or simply don’t have the time. That’s where an external project manager can help.
I’ll talk about that in a minute, but for now let’s take a step back and look at the project management process as a whole.
The Web Development Journey: A Roadmap
Just like a well-planned journey, a web development project goes through several stages. It’s like setting off on a road trip. You plan your route (conceptualization and planning), you prepare your vehicle (design), you start your journey (development), you ensure your vehicle is in top condition (testing), and finally, you reach your destination and maintain your vehicle for future trips (launch and maintenance). If you want to continue working together (I would definitely like that), I can help you with the ongoing maintenance so that your brand new website keeps fresh and doesn’t go stale.
Friendly Tips for the Road
Here are some friendly tips to remember if you want to go at it yourself:
Define Clear Objectives: Be clear about what you want to achieve with your project. It helps to be concise and try to achieve one thing at a time. Small victories.
Leverage Technology: Use project management tools to keep everything on track. I like to use Basecamp, but there are many others. At the end of the day a simple task list might work for you.
Communication is Key: Maintain regular, open dialogue with your team. Make sure everyone knows what the end goal is and strives to inch slowly towards it.
Get the Right Team: Your project is only as good as the people working on it. It helps if you already know them, because there is a lot of trust involved in making a project work.
Stay Agile: Be open to changes and ready to adapt when needed. This is essential: in my experience, you can plan ahead for a year, but until you start developing, you know *nothing* about to happen.
Why Outsourcing Project Management is a Time-Saver
Remember how I said project management is like the rudder of a ship? Well, hiring an external project manager is like having an experienced captain at the helm. It allows you to sit back and enjoy the view, knowing your journey is in safe hands.
Here’s how it saves you time:
Delegation and Focus: You get to focus on your core operations, leaving the project management to someone else. You might like to be hands on, but check your priorities: your main business shouldn’t lose you attention while you fiddle with website font colors. Do not micromanage.
Efficiency through Expertise: By hiring an external manager you can rest assured knowing that your project is being managed by someone with experience in web projects. This means fewer detours, less backtracking, and a more direct route to your destination.
Proactive Problem-Solving: A good project manager will be on the lookout for potential issues, addressing them before they escalate and cause delays. That knowledge comes from experience, and even with the best of intentions, if you manage your own web project for the first time, you might have blind spots.
Meet Your Project Manager
Here’s my sales pitch. A project manager is usually hands-off, just leading a team and taking care of milestones and coordination. Myself, I like to take a hands-on approach. I don’t just wave the baton; I get in there with the orchestra. It’s like being both the conductor and a musician, ensuring everything is in sync while also playing a part in creating the beautiful symphony that is your website. What this means is I’ll be there in the trenches, designing, writing code, creating content and *also* coordinating any help from other developers and keeping the timeline running.
Embarking on a web development project can be exciting, but also a bit daunting. With the right project management approach, you’ll have a smoother journey and a more satisfying destination – a successful, well-designed website. Now, let’s set sail together, shall we?