NOTE: This the sixth segment of a 9-part series on how to create a successful small business website. If you’re planning to create a new small business website or enhance an existing website, this series will help you improve your chances for success. Step 6 involves managing your progress.

MANAGING YOUR PROGRESS

Once you have documented your website development goals, established the resources needed to perform the work and decided on a deadline, you are ready to start your project. Here are a few tips for ensuring that your project is progressing smoothly:

1. Identify milestones for your project. Your project milestones should represent the completion of a task, event or set of activities. You should work with your project team to determine the most appropriate milestones for your web development project.
   

   Here is an example of potential project milestones using the sample project from Step 5:

   Project Goals: Create a new company website to provide information about the company and classes available. Allow customers to contact the company via email, web form, etc. Advertise promotional products/special sessions. Allow customers to subscribe to company newsletter

   Milestone	Description
   1	Finalize Website Content.
   2	Requirements Gathering – Gather/Identify design and user interface preferences.
   3	Approve/Finalize website design/layout
   4	Discuss and approve the eNewsletter provider/vendor and signup for the appropriate package(s).
   5	Development/Design Phase – Complete programming all web files and scripts.
   6	Review and Testing – Complete the review & testing of the final product.
   7	Website Implementation – Go live! Implement/Copy the new/updated website files to the appropriate web servers.

2. Define Projected Completion Dates for each Milestone – For each milestone, work with your website team to identify a projected completion date. It is important that the individuals involved with each phase of the project have input in determining the projected completion dates. If you determine the dates without consulting your team, you may find that you have over or underestimated the level of effort required to complete the tasks. Also, if you are outsourcing the work, you want to find out if your team is dedicated to your project or juggling other projects as well. Your team members should be able to articulate the level of effort and project completion dates. Be sure to articulate your overall deadline for completing the project. You will want to ensure that your timeline allows you to complete the project AHEAD of schedule.
3. Milestone Kick Off Meeting – Schedule a meeting with the appropriate members of your team to kick off each phase. During this meeting, you want to ensure that the team members have the information that they need to start that phase of the project. For example, if you’re approaching the development phase, you want to ensure that you’ve approved the design and provided all of the necessary content before that work begins. There are certainly instances where project phases can run in parallel, but in general you want to ensure that you’ve completed all of the preliminary work prior to moving on to the next phase. You can build inefficiencies into your project by skipping steps. If you step the website finalization phase and move on to the development phase, you may find that you’ve added items to your content that requires that the design be modified or revisited entirely. This adds to your timeline and could potentially increase your final website cost. (See Reducing Your Website Project Costs and Headaches)
4. Milestone Check In – Schedule a quick follow-up with the appropriate members of your team shortly before each milestone’s projected completed date. This follow-up can be made via email or a quick phone call. The purpose of the follow-up is to determine if the milestone was completed on schedule. If the activity is behind schedule, you will want to modify your timeline for each of the subsequent tasks. You could certainly attempt to keep the subsequent phases scheduled as planned, but this tactic is generally a failed effort … that is unless you enlist additional resources (people, time) to ensure that you can stick to the original schedule.

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