Part IV: Working with a Digital Agency

Project Management

By now you and your agency should have drawn up some detailed objectives. It’s time to set up a detailed project plan. We briefly summarised this in part three of this series but now we’ll be looking at it in more detail. The length of each phase of the project plan will vary according to the complexity of the project. Keeping to the project plan is vital if your project is to remain on schedule, on budget and in line with quality expectations. Project management is essential and would broadly involve the following steps:

1. Setting milestones
Develop a detailed description of functionality and specification for each major objective in your project. Once you have these down on paper, you can break them down into milestones that need to be accomplished to complete the project.

2. Planning activities
Milestones can be broken down into a series of smaller activities. Generally these activities will be monitored on a daily basis.

3. Planning for contingencies
Most projects encounter problems that delay the outcome, so it’s important to incorporate time and cost implications that could come about from delays. Some common delays are the results of having to wait on third party organisations. If you have to work with any companies besides your chosen agency, you should anticipate potential delays and what the cost implications of these could be and then add them into your schedule and budget. Naturally, it’s not feasible to plan for every conceivable problem that may arise but consideration should be given to problems that have a high chance of occurring.

4. Plotting the project timeline
Plot all your major milestones on the project timeline and slot in all the activities that need to be completed for the milestones to be achieved. Include the project members that are responsible for each activity and keep up to date with their progress on regular intervals. Using project management software – that all project members have access to – will allow each person to tick off activities as they complete them and view the progress of other parts of the project in real time without the need of unnecessary emails and progress meetings.

5. Establishing communication procedures
Communication is the key to keeping the project running smoothly. Too little communication and the project will likely fall behind. Likewise, too much or cluttered communication could just as easily slow the project down. Decide from the beginning of the project how often communication will be expected and how it will be done. Link project communication, whether meetings, emails or phone calls, with specific milestones and activities. This will prevent discussions going off topic and will ensure each person remains informed about issues that affect them and their objectives.

6. Quality Control
Each phase of the project should be tested according to relevant criteria to ensure minimum levels of quality and functionality are achieved. Different sections of the project may be examined by different individuals, for instance; design elements may be examined and signed off by the design director while functionality may be examined and signed off by the head developer. The agency you work with should already have standard quality assurance testing procedures in place. We recommend you view these before the project commences and add any items you feel may be unique to your project.

If you’ve followed these steps, your project stands a good chance of being completed successfully within budget and on time. But what happens when, due to unforeseen circumstances, you need to change your project brief after it has commenced? How will this affect your budget and timeline? We will have a closer look at these questions in our next article.

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