Over the years we’ve developed a repeatable, efficient process for developing small to medium sized web sites. These web projects are usually completed in one iteration in about 2 to 3 months.
The process we’ve developed involves considerable interaction with and feedback from the client throughout the project. We’ve broken up the project into 6 or 7 mostly overlapping phases:
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It’s important to note that the UI design is determined about half-way through the project. This helps ensure that the design is driven by the business need and functionality instead of the other way around.
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•Client Planning Meeting (discuss process and schedule meetings)
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•Stakeholder Identification
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Create Website Requirements Survey and Send to Client
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•Client Completes and Returns the Survey
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•Survey Analysis
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•Client Kick-off Meetings (Discuss Business, Branding, Technical)
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•Goals (of project/website)
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•Scope List
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User List (Primary. Secondary & Tertiary)
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User Objectives
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Use Case List
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Design Needs (Look and Feel)
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Search Engine Optimization Analysis (Current state, if any, and future needs)
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Seed Keyword List
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Competitor List
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•Company Strengths & Weaknesses
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Key Messages
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Technical Requirements
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•Assumptions
Functional Definition Phase
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Competitor Analysis (Navigation, Messaging)
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Site Map
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Page List
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Navigation Elements
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Wire Frames
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Messaging
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Creative Brief
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UI Design Concepts
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Prioritized Target Keyword List
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Alignment of Use Cases to the Site Map/Page List
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Alignment of Keywords to Page List
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Forms (Fields & Validation)
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Technical Operating Environment Definition
Development
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Page Template Creation (From UI Concepts) (HTML/CSS)
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Template Image Creation (category specific images, etc.)
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CMS & Database Setup for Development
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Style Guide
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Custom Client Specific Coding (Functionality Not Available in CMS)Â
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Configure Content Management System to create categories, pages, menus, lists, etc.
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Seed Content
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Page Content Creation & CMS Integration
Testing & Go Live
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Integration Testing (plugins, content, etc.)
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User Acceptance Testing
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Deploy Solution to Production Environment
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Turn Site Live
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Training
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Support
Every project is unique. So expect to modify your plan with each and every project. Hopefully, this plan will give you a decent baseline to start with.
September 23rd, 2008 at 7:55 am
Hi, I am a web designer by proffesion.
I like your article and would like to request you to use your article in my webpage.
Kind Regards,
Ed
March 31st, 2009 at 7:54 am
I liked your article very much. Thanks for sharing…
October 26th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I like your structure, one thing I would like to suggest is to mention the “Maintenance Phase” which becomes most difficult to some.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Great article! Only as a project manager I would say to the last comment I would not include maintenance as a phase, because a project is finite and maintenance is ongoing (a process).
November 1st, 2009 at 3:55 am
Hi,
It was helpful in preparing a project development gantt chart for me..
November 29th, 2009 at 7:37 am
It is very helpful indeed , Thank You.
November 29th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Great article. Thanks for sharing.
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:46 am
I am impressed with your site. I entered in all the required information to download the project management paper, and it is not responding. Please advice, thanks!
February 15th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Very succinct structure, thanks. If you care to dive deeper, in more complex systems, I typically break out Content Design (early) from UI Design and allow UI Design to wrap up after functional design is completed, allowing final UI Design to accommodate functional and usability paradigms.
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Jeff, Could you pls. elaborate a bit on that cause it is a very interesting point that you raised.
Thanks,
Amir
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:35 am
Bookmarked and Pinged > Website Project Plan – http://www.forwardleap.com/effective-website-development-project-plan
June 24th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
I’m learning so much. This is great
September 12th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
I tried many times website developing phases but I could not get required information which I expected. since last year even now I always search on this topic. Thanks for this article only one doubt here I think SEO includes in last phase because after completion website there is need to promote website. I am looking forward your next such great article.
October 14th, 2010 at 5:23 am
thanks for sharing this
October 23rd, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Very good information, thanks for sharing
November 8th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
,.im new to web development and this article is very helpful in my project plan.,-)thank you,.
January 15th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Very good article. useful, short and concrete staff. thanks
January 16th, 2011 at 6:33 am
hi, it’s very good information , thanks
January 16th, 2011 at 6:39 am
hi, can give me templates of documents for some of phases?
February 1st, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Thanks alot for the for website guidance
February 14th, 2011 at 5:35 am
i’m currently teaching English to french students training to be developers or designers.
It’s been very difficult to find any information in English related to their sphere. (specific vocab, articles, etc ..) especially for developers …
So I find this article very useful.
And the point is I’m not an expert far from that …
it would also be interesting for them to be able to communicate in English on their work and exchange with other developers and designers throughout the world.
Could anyone help me with that issue or give some interesting links …
Or is interested to exchange with any student, they’re on a sandwich course so have some work experience.
Any help would be most welcome
Thank you
February 15th, 2011 at 7:55 am
Hi this is awesome
I would really appreciate your effort in this regard
It will look great if we separate the development phase into different segments say initial, interim and final because knowingly or unknowingly we use to follow iterative prototype methodology for the development of websites.
Thank you for your effort
February 16th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
This was really helpful with my project management studies, well laid out, good points, made me think of things things I hadn’t thought of.
Thank you
April 8th, 2011 at 8:43 am
Hey thank you for the post and also thank you for putting Search Engine Optimization Analysis (Current state, if any, and future needs) early on in the project plan.
This can be such an important part of the project and left as an after thought can cause lots of problems.
Clare
April 26th, 2011 at 8:39 am
thanks you very much this is very good example for web development
June 14th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Thank you so much for this! I am a student at the Art Institute working on my B.S. in Interactive Media & Web Design and they haven’t covered this at all… at least not yet. So it is very helpful to me as I am already designing small websites to local businesses. Again, thank you!
June 29th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
hi. this article is awesome. it will help me to write project planning section in my final semester project documentation.
September 6th, 2011 at 11:09 am
This is a good outline. However, I feel there is one area left out. Between User Interface and Development there should be a section called Technical Specification. This is more important when a team (especially remote) of developers is involved. Not only does the technical specification detail the languages and databases used to in the solution, but it details what specifically is going to be coded – web pages, methodologies, stored procedures, etc. It details how the function is technically created.
I’ve always told my clients the functional specification is like telling me you want a car that will take you from Washington D.C. to Chicago, IL using only 25 gallons of fuel. You want to listen to music and bring four friends along for the ride. The technical specification is going to tell you how that is accomplished. In this example, drawing the technical specification will introduce certain questions that are not answered in the functional specification – like how long should the trip take and how fast (or slow) do you want to go.
I would definitely add “Technical Specification” into the outline – moving and surrounding “Technical Operating Environment Definition” with related details.
September 15th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Very good summary. Thank you John for sharing.
September 22nd, 2011 at 9:17 am
Okkkk…!!???
nIce!!
December 7th, 2011 at 11:50 am
Technical Specifications should be done in or along with the Functional Definition.
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January 16th, 2012 at 12:57 am
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January 22nd, 2012 at 6:40 am
I wish I had been this organised when I was running my own website design business! We have now moved into Microsoft training and I find the work generally more rewarding. No matter how carefully we managed our projects we always seemed to get clients who would say “Oh, can you just add such and such” as the project neared completion and the date seemed to slip way beyond that projected. Just as a matter of interest, do you use Microsoft Project?
February 2nd, 2012 at 10:55 pm
Hello! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with Search Engine Optimization? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good success. If you know of any please share. Cheers!
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