Spending over 11 years in providing enterprise solutions to a diverse and international clientele enabled us to recognize the importance of a smooth and perfect project launch.
Poor project launches are mostly down to disruption that occurs to the project delivery process.
A common scenario that the majority of B2B solution providers find themselves in is one where they are fully blamed by their clients for delivering a project late and ineffective.
While we agree that the blame is not justified completely, companies cannot go around blaming their clients as well, can they?
So, how can your business avoid such scenarios?
Project Launch: A Win-Win Scenario
A win-win scenario is when both client and developer are in sync. Both understand what needs to be done, why and by whom.
Both become teams working towards a clearly defined and understood business objective (e.g.) extending digital business opportunities, new revenue opportunities, enhancing customer service and etc.
We have come to define a win-win scenario by the following criteria:
- Timely: The project was delivered on the agreed upon time.
- Communication: Smooth, clear and effective. No scope-creep.
- Results-Oriented: The project enables the clients’ business objectives.
- Worthy: If we cannot proudly showcase the digital experiences we created then it would have been a waste of time and oxygen.
You may have noticed that the first 3 pillars of our win-win scenario are derived from clarity.
If your client doesn't know what their requirements are nor how the project will serve their business; this is a toxic situation.
Regardless of the size of their budget, attractive as it may be... be prepared for failure.
Challenging Mentality
Despite having a web presence is essential to success in an increasingly digital world; most businesses rarely consider digital experiences as an investment worth prioritizing from the onset.
This dismissive attitude is common amongst many potential clients who are looking to save costs.
Eventually, their supposed "cost-effective" platform fails them and doesn't deliver on their business or growth objectives.
Such clients end up with 2 drastic scenarios:
1. Revamp the website - Imagine building the tower you always needed upon a foundation of haystacks. It's a nightmare. An expensive and hectic process.
2. Build an entirely new platform - Some realize that revamping their old website to match their business needs is not even a valid option. An expensive lesson that many in the market still pay the price for.
To avoid a messy and costly scenario; start on the right foot. It’s free.
Understand your clients’ business
Anyone can build a website.
But, not everyone can create a platform that enables digital business and communication effectively.
Identifying each and every nuance of your clients’ business will enable you to create the effective digital experience they need to meet their business requirements.
The worst possible outcome is to end up in a development process that is stretched, interrupted and derailed by scope creeps.
Scope creeps tend to occur when clients don’t really know what they want.
Asking the right questions from the beginning will force your clients to consider the extent of their business needs and how they expect a digital solution to help them.
This leads to a clear and relevant scope of work. Scope creep would be all but entirely eliminated.
So here are 25 questions that we always ask our potential clients to guarantee a smooth, relevant and perfect project launch:
Situational Analysis
- What is the current website achieving or not achieving?
- What don’t you like about your current CMS?
- Where is your website currently hosted?
- How much time does migrating/designing take?
- Have you created a back-up for your current website?
- Do you have full access?
- Usernames / Passwords?
Marketing
- What is the purpose of the website?
- Who is your target audience? Full profile.
- What are the core capabilities that give you a competitive edge?
- What is your tone of communication (informal/formal)?
- Do you have feedback from your current website users regarding user experience?
- Will the content development and management be handled in-house?
- How frequently will you create, publish and manage content?
- What kind of content? Formats? (e.g.) video, images and etc.
- Can you provide source files needed?
Design and User Experience
- Do you have a preference design or theme for your new website?
- Do you have a list of websites that inspired you?
- Do you have frustration feedback from your visitors about the website design?
- Do you have digital branding guidelines?
Project Management
- Who will be the designated coordinator from your end?
- Will there be any 3rd parties involved? (e.g.) subcontractors.
- What is your budget for the development project?
- Who will be involved in maintaining the website/content management system post-launch?
- Will you require enablement training for your team?
This aforementioned checklist guarantees that we uncover all hidden or unspoken aspects of the solution we need to actually deliver to address the clients' challenges when it comes to launching a Drupal 8 website or project smoothly.