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Project Management: The Sequel

11 April 05

Alrighty, let's finish up my outline for simple, but effective, management of a website project.

Step 6: Create a design based on the content needs

In most of my recent projects, this is where I pass the buck to someone who does a dynamite job of creating designs, but in essence, if you have a designer on hand or you are doing the work yourself, it's a matter of creating a "wireframe" of the content you need so that you have a rough idea how it is going to fit. Then, take that wireframe and use your favorite graphics program to come up with the design. Here's one example of a wireframe for a site done by Design Eye for the Idea Guy at the SXSW Conference this year. Now take a look at the whole process they took to start from the organized content to the design by flipping through their ideas. Simply amazing stuff.

Step 7: Integrate design and content into CMS

This is becoming the norm as of the past year or so, as even smaller sites are starting to use commercial or open-source packages to keep their site(s) managed. In the case of Hiram College, we have been using Lenya, but there's all sorts of Content Management Systems out there. Just do a search in Google for Content Management System and you'll be amazed what's out there. Consult their documentation for information on how to use them and integrate your design.

Step 8: Test the site with a small sampling whenever possible

This is a step that a lot of people overlook - admittedly, in the pressure of getting a site up there as soon as possible, I overlook this as well. When I launch a site where I haven't tested it with anyone else, I'm often embarrassed how many simple and silly mistakes I didn't catch because I was engrossed in the code or some other portion of the site. Learn from my mistakes - be sure you test your site out with someone before launching!

Step 9: Launch the website

That's a no-brainer. But I should include taking the time to celebrate. Often times, we're caught up in the work and the fact that it's done that we don't take the time to thank everyone that helped you get to this point and we don't take the time to celebrate either. What a shame. Sure, it's work, but getting some laughs, smiles, or something will make everyone a little happier, and lots of studies have shown that happy people are a lot more productive than depressed and neglected people.

Project Management Software

Yikes, I managed to leave out an important point, and that is software that manages your project. While there is Microsoft Project, there is a new bit of "software" that is simply amazing and well, simple, to use. It's called Basecamp, and highly recommend that you try it. You can manage one project for free, and multiple projects require a monthly fee, a small one. I tried it once and I'm hooked. It's nice to see something that just gets out of your way and allows you to do the work the way you want it to be done. Let me know if you get a chance to try it and what your impressions are.

What do you think?

So I know you guys and gals are out there - is there anything I'm missing from this list, or anything I should be removing? I'd be interested in hearing your experiences on your projects.