Planning, Managing and Maintaining large web projects

06 July 2007

Well I've been here at Datalink a few months now, so I am now sufficiently part of the team to start my own blog.
I'm actually more of a face-to-face, people person.  So being relatively new to the concept of blogging, I have had a bit of writers block.
Now that I have either met or spoken to all of the customers that I manage, the benefits of blogging to me is that I can make the most of my time and all my clients can benefit from my experience.

In my role as an account manager, I guess I am effectively the conduit between the customer and the developer.  I work with the project manager to ensure that customers are happy and try to turn business ideas into new ideas for websites and intranets and ensure that they are maintained.  Since coming across from Keyvision, I'd like to think I have brought some new skills and ideas to Datalink.  But along the way I've also learned the differences between a web design company and web development team.

I'd previously worked on smaller sized jobs, one thing that has impressed me with the professionalism and experience here.  A lot of effort is put into processes and methodologies to ensure that the outcomes of the project meet the customer's needs.  Because I am largely responsible for the customer relationship, I find these things really important and I have learned a lot in a very short time.   

For example, the sales team puts a lot of work into developing detailed specifications which both customers and the programmers who build it can understand.  In the past, I've seen projects where the customer's requirements have not been translated well, and the results aren't pretty.  Thankfully, I haven't had any experiences like that here.  With Datalink, I've been involved in defining project goals, brainstorming and workshopping concepts with customers and developing wireframe models for websites which show customers visually exactly what they are going to get.  This gives them real confidence in working with us, and all of it is done before even talking technology.

Speaking of technology.  Before I started at Datalink, they gave me what they call an acronym test.  I think it was designed to test what I know (in this industry there are heaps of acronyms).  But rather than simply testing, they wanted to know how I would apply the technologies in my role.

So here are some of the important things in managing large projects.

Collaboration

One of the things they didn't test me on but I'd nevertheless never heard of is CVS.  CVS is huge at Datalink.  When I started, I was hearing CVS this and CVS that.  And I quickly learned why.  CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System but basically it allows a development team to collaborate on complex projects.  Without it, I can't imagine we would be too successful at what we do.  It stops programmers from overwriting someone else's work, and helps enforce accountability.  It helps ensure that at any stage, everyone in the team can see what has been done along the way.  In the chance that something does go wrong, we can always find out how and when and roll things back.

Testing

Detailed test plans are important too.  People don't have time in their busy lives to be looking for or finding annoying bugs. It helps that we are able to anticipate the problems before they happen.  In web development, prevention is always better than cure.

Co-ordination

Keeping your team in synch, and staying in tune with milestone dates takes careful time management.  Sometimes you'll need to work with other people than just your customers.  For example in one project I am working on, Datalink are implementing a third party design.  So I have to help co-ordinate our programmers and another web design company.

Training and Documentation

Training and documentation is really important, and something that I spend a lot of time doing.  For example, a content management system is often an important part of building a website or intranet.  We use our Freestyler product, which was developed here at Datalink.  Although Datalink's products are very usable and can achieve great things, unless people get get proper training, they may never be able to use them properly.  It is important to tailor training to the customer's specific needs, so that they can get what they want out of it.  And any procedures which they need to follow should be written down.  Show them the things that they need first, then anticipate or find out the things that they might want in future.  We know our products inside and out, but that doesn't mean that we always know how our customers are going to use them.

Once you get these things right, you should be able to scale up to projects of virtually any size.

From what I've told you, you'd probably assume that things are pretty regimented here, but it is actually a really relaxed and friendly environment to work with.  Datalink were very welcoming and always willing to help and I really like how we pass that enthusiasm onto our customers.  One of the things I am particularly excited about is how I was able to show a customer the benefits of redesigning their site, which resulted in a significant new project for us which I have been involved in planning and designing.  I am able to apply some of these things that I have learned from start to finish and I hope to tackle bigger and bigger projects for our customers in future.

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