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| Image courtesy of Trevor Pritchard |
Over a decade ago I was involved in a project to create a
website for the local chapter of an internationally recognized club. This was
long before services like WordPress, Blogger or even Facebook made it easy for almost anyone to
create attractive and engaging content without much design or code writing
experience.
The site never materialized, despite a great deal of effort on
my part and several other team members involved. Here are some of the issues
resulting in the non-publication of the site, a failed project.
Fuzzy Project Definition
Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer,
Sutton, and Kramer, (2008) identify distinct project phases. After
deciding if the project is needed and is possible to do, the definition phase
should outline exactly what needs to be done, the time frame, who should do
what, etc. The web design project was never clearly defined. The leadership
team knew they had expertise within the club, i.e., a programmer and a content
developer, but beyond that, there were no clearly assigned roles. For example,
a person may be a good writer but someone who knows the content needs to
provide it in order for the writer to “package” it. So the club had a long and
illustrious history, but who had access to this content and who would do the
research?
Stake Who???
Most projects have stakeholders who have varying degrees of
interest in the outcome and execution of a project. For the website development
project, two key players were the divisional and local presidents. Neither
could decide exactly which was supposed to have the final say on the design and
content. Was it supposed to look local yet retain the distinctive international
brand colours? Should all the clubs in the division join to create one site or
should the club that came up with the initiative be allowed to go ahead and
produce its own site? Round and round and round… No one could decide, and more
importantly, would sign off on anything.
Creepers
In the initial project brief it was decided that the nature
of the site should be like a brochure providing information on the clubs
activities and highlighting its successes. General information on meeting times
and dates, contact information, identifying club officials, etc. would be included.
Then various club entities, not necessarily
on the executive but influential nevertheless kept coming up with more bright
ideas. “Why not include downloadable forms,” they said. Why not collect dues
online? Why not have a sing-up form for more information? The “whys” kept
coming like a toddler under the influence of a very sweet drink. The project
scope to be expanded well beyond the available time and resources of the team.
So, an ill-defined project, opposing stakeholders and a case
of extreme scope creep killed the website project. If only I knew then what I
know now.
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J.,
Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project
management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Photo retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/tcp909/4809285382/ Creative Commons license. Modification: Cropped and smudged.
Sandra,
ReplyDeleteWeb designer - check, content developer - check, writer - check and your fine will to succeed identifies a project that would be rather seamless to result in a quality end product. The stakeholders and leaderships inability to make a decision amongst themselves and provide clear direction indeed killed it. New and innovative ideas are always welcomed, however there was a severe lack of action that has been spoken with loud words that never goes unnoticed. Good initiative, very poor judgment in this case. Oh yes, the why this and why that can be a bit childish and could very well create a hostile working environment that is something that no employee wants to face every day. What should have brought to the table is, why are we not communicating and pushing forward on this project? Reputations and business survival are built on this foundation. All too often, decision makers seem to have a sudden case of blindness that creations or wishes can help others outside of the office, in fact internationally. Prime scenario towards an epic failure.
Dave