The small business
Digital project management for new companies can be difficult but they’re a LOT of fun.
With new companies you have a branding sub-project to complete before working on the digital deliverables.
Type of organisation
In my experience there are two type of organisations you deal with in this case:
Small or sole business owner
Start-up business with a group of investors
Common problems
Although the process of setting up online solutions for them are similar you have to deal with these common problems:
- Small budget compared to project scope
- Time to market is quick
- Organisational structure isn’t defined or finalised
- Operational issues
The client
There is a lot of pressure on the client and as the project manager you have to help them alleviate stress. Generally they are paying for the work with their own money and they’ll end up doing the work on the websites, social media and other marketing.
You can help them:
- By starting the first meeting with a quick presentation on how online development works. This is a good time to explain the project life cycle, why things are done in a certain order and how planning and development works. Include a page where you show client involvement in the project life cycle.
- Ideally you would leave a print-out of a presentation so that they can refer to it later.
- Pay special attention to their role in the process – points where their decisions are required and the affect on the project timeline if they delay with feedback.
Other issues
- Design: Emphasise how many conceptual design and design iterations they pay for.
- Explain the change control system.
- Sign-off: explain why, when and the importance of them signing off deliverables in the project life cycle
- Timeline: explain how delay in sign-off will affect the timeline. Pay special attention to resource availability if you work for a small company. You may need to explain why their project is delayed by a month because they missed a deadline and the allocated resources had to complete other work.
- Costings: Be very explicit with your assumptions and deliverables
- Hosting: The operational management is often forgotten in costing documentation, make sure you explain recurring costs to their business
- CMS: If the website solution involves a content management system.
- Budget time to train them in it
- Emphasise that it’s their responsibility to write content and create visual elements they want to include in it. If your company has an in-house designer and copywriter – it may be a good idea to convince them to purchase a support contract – even if it’s just for a couple of months to help them get started.
In my next post I’ll talk about the problems and challenges when you do work for a new company with a group of investors.