Want to make sure your website redevelopment project fails spectacularly? Try these things (and please understand the sarcasm):
- Don’t Have a Plan: Build a new website because, well, it just feels like it’s time to build a new website, not because shifts in business strategy, customer behaviors or competitive pressures that demand it.
- Don’t Document Anything: Don’t bother memorializing strategic, business, technical or UX requirements and using them as a roadmap. This process stuff is just a waste of time. Jump right to design and development without those pesky, uncomfortable business discussions.
- Go Cheap, Go Fast: Your 16 year old nephew builds websites, so how hard can it be? This shouldn’t take much time or money at all.
- Avoid PMO Resources: Having a strong project manager who’ll keep everyone on task and delivering on schedule is just more process stuff that just gets in the way..
- Let Sales or IT Drive the Project: No need for a 360-degree business and customer experience view of the project. Keep the marketing, IT, operations and customer service leaders as far away as possible.
- Ignore Data: Disregard what the data tells you; go with your gut instincts. What you think and feel should always take precedence over the solid proof of data.
- Make the Creative Execution a Top Priority: Treat it like a finger-painting project and spend your time focusing on pretty colors and nice pictures and how the site looks.
- Mimic Others: Don’t distinguish yourself. Instead, just assume that what your competition is doing is right and copy what they’re doing.
- Build Your Own: Don’t use highly-rated, trusted and proven, third-party applications or platforms. It’s always cheaper, easier and more reliable to build rather than buy.
- Skimp on the Testing: If something isn’t working the way it should, your customers will let you know about it.