Launch Faster: 12 Tips for Avoiding Web Project Delays

December 6, 2007

It seems like everyone I’ve talked to lately is in the middle of some kind of web development project delay. (We even had an entire thread about it in the StartupNation Community.) I started asking around and thinking about the delays I’ve had or heard about in my own webdev business to figure out why these kinds of delays happen. What I’ve found that if you want your site to be launched several months after you thought it would, do one or more of the following things:

Don’t plan anything.
A website should be thoroughly planned out from the start. When building starts without proper planning, trying to add features to the site while maintaining proper user flow can greatly increase the development time. If you need help with website planning, see the links below.
Do It Yourself (DIY).
Many bootstrapping entrepreneurs follow a similar path: first they make their own site and put it up, then they go with some low-budget company to toss a site together, and finally they find some professionals to help them. If your goal is bootstrapping, that method is fine—but if your goal is getting up to speed quickly, I’d skip the first two steps and go straight to number three.
Reinvent Amazon.com with a single programmer.
Large programming projects often take several programmers to complete them in a reasonable amount of time, so if your budget or resources only allow for one programmer, you can expect lengthy project delays.
Insist on a complicated design or backend.
Web design is not an exact science—sometimes a perfect design will be a bear to get working in all browsers, or a program will crash with a small variation in input. Unforeseen delays do happen, and they need to be accepted and discussed in a realistic fashion. More importantly, good design does not have to be complicated.
Change orders frequently.
Changing the focus of your site, your target market, or your core product line during the development process is a sure-fire way to extend the project timeline.
Don’t devote any time to the project.
Many web startups are done by people with other things going on. If the client and the developer can’t devote their full effort to the project, delays will occur.
Don’t make a project timeline.
Websites are often built in modules—that is, the features are built in a compartmentalized fashion and then rolled out one at a time. This serves three purposes: one, it allows easy project milestones to be made; two, it softens the blow to the support team to not release all new features at once; and three, it allows the team to get the site up faster for marketing and traffic-building purposes because the time between start and launching phase one is shorter than the time to complete all phases. Not releasing features on a timeline delays the site launch and stops all marketing and traffic-building efforts until the site is finished.
Call constantly.
Programming takes focus and concentration. Calling your programmer several times a day cuts into vital programming time. To keep momentum going, use e-mail instead of calling, or set up scheduled times for phone updates and communications.
Disagree with your developer when you can.
When a client and a developer are talking apples and oranges, either the developer has failed to ask the client the right planning questions or the client has failed to give complete answers—or both.
Don’t manage your team of contractors.
When many contractors are coming together on a single project, such as artists, user interface designers, programmers, copywriters and SEO experts, they must all be carefully managed to avoid communication and delivery problems. When one part of the team falls behind the others, the entire project can get delayed.
Have no working capital.
Cash flow problems are the death of any business, but they can be especially troublesome when they happen in the middle of a development project. When change orders and other unplanned issues come up and the client runs out of money, the project will typically stop unless the developer can agree on payment terms. This is especially true for large projects that involve months of programming.
Frustrate your team.
When either the client or the developer doesn’t hold up their end of the agreement, the project usually loses momentum and stalls out. This can take many forms: The client not paying on time, the developer not producing results by milestone dates, or either party not responding to communications in a timely fashion. Micromanaging, over-controlling, and other sinful habits during project by the client are also really great ways to get development to screech to a halt.

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2 Responses to “Launch Faster: 12 Tips for Avoiding Web Project Delays”

Bootstrapper » Carnival of Business and Entrepreneurship #2 on December 9th, 2007 1:26 am

[...] Gipps presents Launch Faster: 12 Tips for Avoiding Web Project Delays posted at Small Business Essentials: News, Tips and [...]
» Carnival of Business and Entrepreneurship #2 on January 3rd, 2008 9:02 pm

[...] Gipps presents Launch Faster: 12 Tips for Avoiding Web Project Delays posted at Small Business Essentials: News, Tips and [...]

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