The secret about me is that I love to debrief. So, while waiting for the new IAVA website to propagate, I wrote a little post-game of our development process.

Some background: If you don’t already know, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is the premier organization for Iraq and Afghanistan vets and their supporters. They were instrumental in passing the new GI Bill, just launched a vets-only social network, and are behind a powerful new ad from the AdCouncil. And they have a brand new site!

Some highlights:

1. A beautiful new look and feel courtesy of Biro Creative.
2. A total reorganization of their content to make it more intuitive for users.
3. A three-pronged blog to help users find content that is most interesting to them: Opinion, Legislative Updates, or daily News Summaries.
4. A page of “success stories” where IAVA can highlight major accomplishments.

And, of course, it has thoughtful, interesting content. Go now and check it out! But in this post I wanted to talk about project management and website development, if you’ll indulge me.

Despite a very quick turn-around, lots of complicated functionality, and pages with tons of views, this project left me feeling energized, proud, and happy. Why? First, the IAVA website team was an absolute dream to work with—responsive, flexible, and thoughtful—and that can’t be overstated. Second, EchoDitto’s Software Architects rule. Finally, we tried some new project management strategies that I thought worked well:

1. Engage your client in the process. Beginning with the first week of tech development, we held a weekly call with the IAVA team. The basic format of each call was the same: what we had done to date, how to use any new functions, what we’re building next, and some “homework” for the coming week. While this may sound tedious, showing progress and giving a sense of where we were in the timeline helped keep us all on the same page. Also, the IAVA team really liked seeing their site grow from week to week.
2. Get content in early. About two weeks before any website launches, I wake up in a cold sweat from the following nightmare: we’ve launched the site, I turn on my computer, navigate to the site, and find [da da dummmm] Lorem Ipsum text everywhere. It’s hard to know how long it will take to get content into a site, and it’s easy to underestimate. By starting with the most content-heavy sections of the site, we could let our clients go in and enter content from the earliest days of development. This gave them a sense of how the system worked, and if anything was not to their liking.
3. Breaking down training makes it more digestible. Instead of one three-hour training two-weeks after launch, we did 20-30 minutes of training a week during our call, with a training guide for that section emailed as follow up. I also assigned “homework” for the section to ensure that everything made sense. (E.g. Phone training on how to add press releases, a training guide on adding new content, an “assignment” to enter 5-10 press releases and ask any questions.) This process also helped us develop the site because any inconsistencies or bugs were identified early.
4. Try Litmus Apps. In addition to manually testing the site on a variety or browsers, we used Litmus Apps to simultaneously test the site in several browsers, even those we didn’t have installed (Chrome, for one). If you’re about to send out a big email alert, or launch a site, there’s also a day pass option that shows your email/page in a variety of mail programs/browsers.
5. Give lots of updates. Having been on the client end more than once, I remember the anxiety of sitting next to my phone wondering why we I didn’t see the site an hour after projected launch time, with my boss breathing down my neck. Even if there’s no news, don’t forget to give updates and explain what’s going on.

I think that’s it. That said I’m always looking to improve my project management skills and trying to be easier to work with. Do you have tips, as a client or as a project manager, that you think make website development smoother? Do tell!