Introduction
Picture this: You work at a nonprofit organization, and something is broken on your website. You’re not the most technical person, but you know how to do what you need to do on your website to do your job. But today, it’s not working. It doesn’t magically start working the next day, either. You can’t get your work done because your website is broken. What’s the best process to fix it on time and within budget? What details do you need to share with your web developers?
Here’s what our project managers recommend.
The Project Management Triangle
The key tenets that drive project management are scope, time, and cost.
- Scope: project deliverables and objectives
- Time: project schedule and timeline
- Cost: the project’s budget
These three tenets are dependent on each other; for example, if the scope needs to be expanded, the time and cost will need to be adjusted to reflect the change in order to maintain quality. If a task takes longer to turn around than anticipated, the cost and schedule may need to be revised.
With this knowledge, we encourage nonprofit organizations to start with “the Five Ws” : Who, What, When, Where, and Why. We recommend considering the following questions when there’s a bug or new feature needed on your website.
Who Do You Contact?
Agencies take different approaches to submitting requests. Refer to your dev agency’s documentation or existing process. Some examples:
- If your dev team has a Helpdesk, fill out the Helpdesk form to submit a ticket.
- If your dev team has a project manager, email your project manager.
- If your dev agency has a sales contact, reach out to the sales contact.
What Were You Trying to Do, But Couldn’t?
Describe what you were trying to achieve, and outline the steps you followed, including the devices and browsers you used. This allows the development team to recreate the issue and begin troubleshooting. List relevant links to where the issue occurred, and include screenshots and error messages when applicable.
Document your needs based on the issue you are experiencing, not just the solution you have in mind. DevCollaborative is a team of whole-brain thinkers and many other agencies prefer working this way. Work with your web team to find a solution that fits your needs.
Consider your website audiences and your organizational goals in addition to any content editing needs. Why do you want to make this change? How will it help you achieve your goal?
What is Your budget?
Do you know your budget? Do you have a budget cap? DevCollaborative often works within budget caps, finding reasonable solutions for now, with space for iteration and feature expansion in the future. Sharing any known budget constraints or limitations allows your web team to offer solutions that don’t break the bank.
When Do You Need the Fix or New Feature Live?
Do you have a marketing or development deadline driving the work? Would it be helpful if the dev team didn’t deploy new work on a certain date due to planned promotions, or particularly high-traffic moments?
It’s helpful to know what’s coming up for your organization so that the dev team can plan around what you’re doing.
It can also be helpful to know if there’s flexibility in your timeline.
Defining “Done”
Sometimes, knowing when a task is complete is pretty straightforward; if the broken thing is no longer broken, the work is done. But for more complex issues, for changes deep in the code, it can be helpful to define what “Done” means. Work with your web team to define “done” for your project at the start, so that you can all work toward the common goal.
Conclusion
Communicating the Five W’s each time you reach out to your web team ensures everyone is speaking the same language, which is critical to ensuring success of nonprofit web projects.
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