Building a Website – Communication is King

When you embark on a website build, you want the project to go smoothly and be completed on time. How do you make sure this happens?

When you embark on a website build, you have high hopes.

You hope everything goes smoothly, that there are no delays, and that you end up with a spectacular website, delivered on time and on budget.

But somewhere along the line, something goes wrong. There is a delay because both you and your website company are waiting on each other for a deliverable. Your provider “goes dark” for weeks on end and you have no idea if they are even still in business. The finished website looks totally different from the design concept, which itself looked totally different to the wireframe version, and no-one wants to take responsibility.

And, worst of all, in among all the to-ing and fro-ing, a lot of extra work gets added to the project, the cost blows out, and you end up spending way more than you bargained for.

What went wrong?

It all comes down to communication

When communication lines are tangled, projects get snagged and may even grind to a halt.

This is why at Boylen, we have honed our processes to avoid communication breakdowns and keep your project on track.

1. AGILE

Q: how do you eat an elephant?

A: one bite at a time.

AGILE is nothing unique to Boylen, but for us, it’s our mantra.

Rather than a giant, monolithic undertaking, each project is broken down into sprints, with key deliverables at the end of each. The sprints each have their own deadlines and handovers.

Essentially, this is just common sense put into practice – take a big problem, break it down into a series of smaller problems, then solve them one at a time, in a logical order.

2. Synchronicity

Email is a wonderful tool, but it’s not without its limitations.

Your server goes down, your website company’s email gets stuck in your spam folder, you’re sure you sent that request but there’s no record of it in anyone’s folders – it’s a familiar tale.

This is why we use an online project management system that can handle not only emails, but comments, tasks, due dates, notebooks, files – in short, every communication tool needed to keep a website project on track. If you make a comment, it appears on our screen, and we can action it, right then and there.

3. Transparency

With our AGILE process in place and our synchronous project management system ticking over, you will never be in the dark about where your project is at.

Transparency is a vital component in communication, which is why we like to hold ourselves internally accountable.

Our morning scrum happens every day. Everyone in the team knows what everyone else did yesterday and what they need to get done today. It helps us stay on track, but it also helps us crowdsource if we’re under the pump. The team can pitch in and help because the team knows where it’s at.

Get the timing of your high-fives right!