This is unashamedly inspired by Sam Barne’s 7 deadly sins of web project management. While Sam wrote his post from the position of being a project manager on the agency side (as you would expect), this post is concentrating on being a help for the client side. It is aimed at providing a guide to 7 things to avoid when planning and executing a new web project.

Gluttony – do not over specify your features

The first of the deadly sins, Gluttony, appears in the form of over specifying a website project. This could be the big chance to produce something that is forward thinking, innovative and solves all the issues your organisation may have.

While the first two parts of the above sentence should apply to every new project where possible, the last can easily be any new project’s downfall. This is due to the time it takes to execute such a complex project, and the time taken to organise it. Once all that time has been taken and the project is launched, a lot of the thoughts and things asked for are no longer needed, or possibly out of date.

The solution to this is centered around phasing a project and not worrying about the specific, finite details of future phases that are in the medium to long term future. Concentrate hard on the current phase while keeping in mind your long term goals. Launch phases of the project in quick iterations, taking feedback and improving as you go.

The most important thing to remember is that your users will tell you the direction to go in terms of their feedback both send to you, and through your analytics. Even the best and most insightful thought leaders and managers cannot predict with any great accuracy what your users will do. You could specify 20 different features for your web project. Out of those 20, users may regularly use 3, and ignore the rest that you spent 80% of your effort on building.

Think about the long term, plan the short to medium term and launch often and gather feedback.

Greed – do not over stuff your content/products

Although it sounds very similar to gluttony, greed takes a different form when beginning a web project, in the form of content planning. Whether it’s how many pages of copy to describe your services, or how many products to add to your website, do not add too much.

It’s very easy to think when planning your site that everything should be on it to the nth degree. Every product, service and detail of what you do. This is untrue. Too much detail can easily put your users off more than help them.

Imagine you’re planning a ecommerce website. 20% of your products generate 80% of your revenue (not an uncommon situation). You put all of your products on the site. This means that your users find it harder to get to the products they want (the 80%) and so decreases your sales. Of course there are ways to organise and categorise your products to help this situation, but that’s not the point.

When it comes to both product and content, add your most important items in your first phase and launch with them. Ensure you’re getting those right before adding the others. When you do add the others, measure to ensure you haven’t had an adverse effect on the main products or content.

The bottom line is to make sure you add to your project what makes the biggest different to your bottom line first. Then look to the more fringe products in future phases.

Sloth/Melancholy – do not take your time at the start

It might feel like it. You’re planning a project that needs to be ready for 9 months time for instance. Seems so far away right now. This leads us to sloth. A sense of urgency is needed at the very start of the project, and milestones set very early on.

If you lose a day every month in a 9 month project you’ll be two working weeks over timescales by the end. And three weeks from the end is too late to add more resource or try and bring the project in on time.

The solution is to have the same rhythm and pace through the project and ensure you’re hitting your milestones; measure often and adjust quickly if there are issues.

Lust – do not give precedence to your own desires

As human beings, we’re all guilty of this sin in various ways. When planning a website project, it can be very easy to plan it from your point of view, at the detriment of others. Your lense on the world and this project varies wildly from that of others in your organisation, your users, suppliers, etc.

It’s important therefore to plan with an all inclusive perspective, and not let your own aspirations and thoughts as to what is and is not important cloud the overall direction of the project.

One possible solution is to engage the services of an outside organisation who has no bias towards any one department. They can bring the perspective needed to plan a fair project to achieve the organisation’s goals.

Pride – do not think you have to solve it all

Possibly the easiest sin for someone beginning a web project to fall foul of. You have been assigned the task of planning and executing this project – it’s easy to think that you should have all the answers. In reality, you don’t! No one does. Not even me.

The solution is to ensure you bring in the help you need. Get other perspectives, seek expert opinions, ask the questions you don’t think you should have to ask, and more. Make sure you are comfortable with what you are doing and not pretending you know more than you do. Generally, other people are very happy to help if you only ask.

Envy – do not copy your competition

This is easy to do. Your competition adds a new feature you hadn’t thought of yet or something you already have in the next phase. They might have done it slightly different or in your belief better. It’s easy to just ask someone to copy it. Don’t do it!

In all probability, your site has a slightly different customer profile, different needs and different priorities. Copying something else might not be appropriate. The more dangerous aspect is that the more you do this, the more your site will become a hotch potch of mixed execution styles, user interfaces and this all ultimately leads to confusion for the user.

The solution is to be inspired by your competition, appreciate what they do well, but not copy it.

Wrath – do not blame, collaborate

The final sin in this list, wrath can poision a project so quickly and is hard to recover from. If you have a blame culture within your project, everyone will be scared about being blamed for issues, and so no one will make a decision or take responsibility for anything. Delegation becomes exceptionally difficult.

When assembling your project team and planning it all out, make sure that you instill a culture of responsibility and honest reporting. No one will be blamed, issues need to be raised quickly and will be dealt with proactively.

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