Matrix Group International

Tag: Project Management

  • How Long Does It Take to Design a Website?

    How Long Does It Take to Design a Website?

    Dollar signWhen I’m presenting to prospects and clients, I almost always get the question “How long will it take to design my website?” As you can imagine, the answer is usually “It depends.” Depends on what?

    In my experience, a design timeline will depend on the scale of the project, the amount of content to migrate, the complexity of the navigation and design, the turnaround time needed to provide feedback, the number of integrations with third party systems, and testing resources and availability.

    When pressed, however, here are the guidelines I usually share with clients:

    Blogs are usually the fastest to get online. Why? Because blogs usually have a simple structure, they usually follow the style of the main organization website, and they have predictable elements: recent posts, blog archive, about the blogger, RSS feed, tag cloud, and social media feeds. Using a blog platform like Blogger, you can get a blog up in about an hour. But if you’re looking to create a blog with a custom theme, it usually takes 2-4 weeks. If it’s urgent, we can get a blog up in a matter of days, assuming the content is ready, the client provides quick feedback, and there is agreement about the blog strategy.

    Website facelifts can be fast or they can take time. At Matrix Group, a website facelift involves updating the site’s design elements, but you’re making minimal changes to the navigation and structure and you’re not changing the content management system (CMS). Facelifts can take week or two, or they can take a couple of months. Facelifts get derailed when the decision is made to drastically change the navigation, change CMS platforms, add significant new functionality, and update a lot of the content. Since clients generally need facelifts done fast, we try to never let the timeline go past two or three months.

    A standard redesign for us is one that involves updating the navigation based on user feedback, giving the site a new look and feel, migrating to a new CMS, migrating content from the old site to the new site, and adding new functionality. Since most of our clients also have or want to have member or customer portals, we usually integrate with some type of CRM system. These redesigns tend to take between 6-9 months. The most time-consuming tasks are often: creating an inventory of the entire site, migrating content, updating content, and ironing out all of the details of the integrations. Not having all the content ready is the number one reason these design projects get delayed.

    Design projects with lots of integrations and/or custom programming take the most time. Matrix Group recently completed a redesign project that involved a rebranding effort, migration of close to 10,000 pages, a move to a new CMS, and integrations with several vendors. This project took about a year. In general, I recommend to clients that projects never have a timeline of longer than 12 months. After 12 months, project staff get burned out, they start doubting that the project will ever launch, and they get sick of the design. If your project will legitimately take more than 12 months because of the scope of the work, I recommend breaking up the project into phases and launching functionality over time.

    Are there things vendors and clients can do to speed up timelines? Absolutely! My top tips:

    • Establish a deadline and give the project a sense of urgency.
    • Start working on your content from day one.
    • Start integration discussions early in the project.
    • Schedule design presentations and check-ins with senior staff ahead of time so that you don’t waste time on scheduling meetings and to keep the project moving.
    • Have a clear decision-making process.
    • Line up testing resources close to the time of launch.

    How long did your last redesign project take and what lessons did you learn?

     

     

  • What’s Your Membership Experience?

    I’ve blogged in the past about Vistage, the CEO membership organization that I’ve been a member of for five years. I was talking with a Vistage VP a few weeks ago and he summed up the Vistage experience quite succinctly: strong peer advisory group with well-run meetings, effective coaching and world-class speakers. In other words, the entire Vistage organization is focused on creating a membership experience that includes these 3 elements.

    I got to thinking. How many organizations have eloquently and succinctly described their ideal member or customer experience? Indeed, how many of us have architected how our customers interact with us and experience our services in an intentional way?  Alex Pineda, the Matrix Group Creative Director, talks often about how every interaction with a company IS the user experience, from the way the phones are answered, to how emails are responded to, how products are delivered, how invoices are sent, how conference calls are run, and how disputes are handled. As CEO, part of my job is to make sure that for every type of potential customer interaction, we’ve defined how we will respond.

    Here’s an example of a situation where the staff expectations were not well defined, so we kept falling down on the job. A couple of clients complained that after approving a proposal, we weren’t responding fast enough to kick off the project. Turns out that we hadn’t defined the turnaround time for creating the project in our system and kicking off the work. Depending on how busy a project manager was in any given week, it took between 1 – 7 days just to get a project entered into the system. So the project managers sat down and crafted a better process. Today, when a proposal is approved by a client, an email goes out the same day from the new business team to announce the project to the project manager and assigned team members. The admin team creates the project in the intranet within 24 hours of the approval, sends the link to the client and schedules the kickoff call. Doesn’t this sounds like a much better, more user-friendly, and more intentional customer experience?

    I think about how pleasant it is to call American Express. I’m never on hold for very long, I’m always referred to by name, I’m always thanked for being a cardmember for over 20 years, and if I’ve called the wrong number, I’m transferred directly and the person I’m speaking with stays on the phone until the next person come on. I have to believe that every little part of this whole experience has been carefully architected and tweaked over time.

    Turns out that architecting an amazing customer experience is really hard and requires paying attention to the big picture as well as the littlest of details. For me, the most important thing is realizing that every client interaction is part of the customer experience and we can, and should be, intentional about every single one of these interactions.

  • JP Rule #10: Never Deliver Bad News Via E-mail or IM. Never.

    Just as our moms and Miss Manners tell us to never to break up with someone via email or Facebook, I tell my Project Managers to never, ever deliver bad news to clients or staff via e-mail or instant messenger (IM).

    Delivering bad news via email or IM is just plain bad business so why do people do it? They do it because they’re pressed for time. Or they don’t want to face the client and answer tough questions. Or they’re clueless and think sending an email will fix the problem. Or they don’t know how to deliver the bad news and negotiate a solution. Here’s what I tell my team:

    • If you have bad news, you owe it to the other side to deliver the bad news by phone, if not in person. This shows respect and thoughtfulness. Most importantly, a meeting or call is a two-way conversation, not a one-sided delivery.
    • Bad news is any news that might upset someone. The news could be monumental, e.g., Mr. client, we need more time to test the new database. Or less so, e.g., Ms. staffer, you can’t take off next Friday because we have a new site gong live.
    • Some news, even if it’s not bad, deserves a call or meeting. For example, we made the changes the client requested to the home page designs and they don’t look great so we want to discuss alternatives.
    • Email messages, no matter how carefully crafted, can be easily misinterpreted because they don’t have benefit of tone, body language or conversational context.
    • Staff deserve the same thoughtfulness and regard as clients. In other words, don’t assume that because someone works for you, you can deliver bad news via email or IM.
    • In general, IM is a bad way to communicate complex messages and a bad medium for a discussion.
    • When in doubt, pick up the phone or get advice from your manager.
    • Clients and staff aren’t Facebook friends you can post updates to. They are people and they deserve your time and attention.

    I have actually found that it’s our ability to turn around a mistake or a bad situation that cements our client relationships. If we have bad news, it’s an opportunity to explain how we got there and what we’re going to do to make the situation better. This can never, ever be done via email or IM.

    How about you? Have you ever received bad news via email or IM? What did you do?

  • Your New Website Isn’t Done, It Probably Needs Tweaking

    My family moved into our new house last July and guess what? We’re not done with the unpacking and decorating. Yes, the new house is worlds better than our old house, all the furniture is in place, we have stuff on the walls, and most of the boxes are gone, but we’re not done and it’s taken months of tweaking to make the house fabulous.

    Our move reminds me of every single website launch at Matrix Group. When a Project Manager reports that he or she will be done with a project when it launches, I warn that there could be weeks of tweaks and that we should just expect it. Here’s why:

    Sometime, you just don’t don’t know where to put something until you’ve lived with it a while. I wish I could say that our information architecture process is perfect and we account for every piece of content, but it’s not and we don’t. Clients often have to live with a site for a few days or weeks before they figure out where everything should go. In the meantime, content doesn’t go up or it gets stored under some generic navigation called Resources. I feel like Resources is like our garage; there’s a lot of great stuff in there but it’s hard to find what you’re looking for and you know you need a better organization system.

    The little tweaks can make all the difference in the world. The new master bathroom in our house is wonderful but it had a few problems. You had to walk inside to reach the light switch and the towel bar was several feet away from the shower. We were unhappy from the beginning but we didn’t know what we wanted or how to fix the problem. Then one day, my husband came home with a wireless outlet that he attached to the wall. Voila! We can now turn on the light before entering the bathroom! And a hook added to the wall just outside the shower solved the towel problem. Same with a website. We often need a few days or weeks of real users road testing the site before we can make the slight improvements to the flows and paths that make the site really great. For one client, we added a Google map link to a calendar application; it was amazing how much happiness 2 lines of code created.

    You can’t finish decorating right away. Our new house is laid out in a very similar manner to the old house but nearly everything had to be re-arranged. Bookshelves got moved around the house, we re-arranged the closets, and the living room is completely different, even though the dimensions are the same and we didn’t buy new furniture. With website redesigns, small changes to the navigation sometimes means a total rework of the content and CMS. And clients often can’t conceive of how to “dress up” pages with images and formatting until they are live.

    You’ll get more done if you throw a party. My mom always says that if you want your house to look good, throw a party. You’ll get the boxes unpacked, the pictures hung and the furniture arranged – just in time. When a client picks the launch date for their website, we ask if they will be unveiling the site at a conference or event. I love having a deadline tied to a conference because conferences don’t move, which means everyone hustle to get things done and it’s amazing how much content gets written right before the event and launch.

    Anticipate the tweaks. At Matrix Group, we know that it takes time for clients to get comfortable with the new site, use its new functions and figure out what’s working and not working. Leslie Blum from Carolinas AGC calls them “iron outs” and she’s right on. It generally takes between 2-4 weeks to get the help text just right, all the new content loaded, and the integration use cases all worked out. So rather than fight the tweaks, we anticipate them and plan for them in our schedule. I will caution, however, that tweaking past 30 days can get counter-productive. You run the risk of the team losing steam and experiencing launch fatigue.

    In the last 30 days, we’ve launched new sites for the Ironworkers, the American Society of Addiction Medicine and the Washington Building Congress. Although the sites look great, we’re still tweaking. 🙂

     

  • JP Rule #1: Do or do not. There is no try.

    JP Rule #1: Do or do not. There is no try.

    © 2007 USPS. All Rights Reserved.

    In honor of May 4, a sacred day among Star Wars fans (because George Lucas released all of the Star War movies on May 4th), I’m blogging about my Rule #1: Do or do not. There is no try.

    Clearly, I did not make up this rule. It’s Yoda’s rule. But it’s a damn good rule, especially in business.

    Here’s what I know: Clients don’t come to us so we can TRY to develop the complicated web application they need. They need us to do it. And they need to know that we will be successful and the end result will be close to what they envisioned.

    I learned a long time ago that when assigning tasks that must get done, I don’t ask staff if they can do it. I provide background, then ask what they need to get the project done, what obstacles are in their way, and how I can support them. And when I get, “I’ll try,” I remind them that “I’ll try” is not a commitment and it’s not a promise, it’s a half-hearted “maybe” or a definite “no.”

    Now, if we’re brainstorming, assessing options or exploring whether or not we can accomplish something, then I ask if we (Matrix Group) can do it. And it’s perfectly legit to say, “I’ll try.”

    So what happens if someone (me included) doesn’t know exactly how to get the required task accomplished and can’t quite commit to it just yet? In that case, I ask people to give me a plan that details what they are going to do so they will know and can commit to a timeline and budget.

    In Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda lifts Luke’s starfighter from the swamp. An incredulous Luke says, “I don’t believe it.” To which Yoda retorts, “that is why you fail.” Like Yoda, my best developers, front-end developers, designers, admins, project managers (yada, yada) believe they can accomplish ridiculously hard tasks under ridiculous deadlines. That is why they succeed.

  • JP Rule #3: Never Let Your Client Make a Mistake

    JP Rule #3: Never Let Your Client Make a Mistake

    The Matrix Group running team wanted t-shirts for a couple of races this Spring and Summer. We ordered black running shirt with our logo printed using a sublimation process, meaning that instead of being an applique, the ink is fused into the shirt fibers. This ensures the shirt remains breathable and the logo will be long lasting. We ordered the shirts from a company Boombah. Unfortunately, the shirts were got had the logos applied with a Fusion process, which is essentially a high-end iron on transfer. The shirts look and feel like plastic.

    We called Boombah to complain that we ordered shirts with a sublimation process, which, incidentally, is what our e-mail receipt says. The Boombah sales rep said something to the effect of “the sublimation process is only available for the white and gray shirts. Our receipts say sublimation as part of the template, but it’s wrong. Our website is very clear that you can’t get sublimation with the black shirts.” (Don’t get me started on what happened when I asked to speak with a manager or the owner. It was not good.)

    Okay, forget that the invoice says sublimation. Boombah violated what I affectionately refer to as JP Rule #3: Never let your client make a mistake. In my mind, if we had called asking for black shirts with logos, the rep should have made sure we were crystal clear on the concept that sublimation, which is the nicer printing method, is NOT available for black shirts. Knowing that fusion on black makes for a crappy shirt, the rep should have at least tried to prevent us from making that mistake. Yes, we ultimately placed the order and we take responsibility. We paid for the shirts and promptly ordered a batch from another company.

    Whether it’s shirts or websites, clients rely on their service providers for expertise and recommendations. It’s up to us to educate our clients, make sure they understand the options, make recommendations, and warn them if we think they’re about to make a mistake. Yes, clients ultimately need to make their own decisions and they are big boys and girls, but if we hold technical knowledge they don’t, shouldn’t we at least make sure they are aware of the impact of their choices?

    Case in point. A new client was implementing MatrixMaxx, our association management software. Our main contact told us that the association didn’t need any company demographics as part of the setup. We questioned this decision several times and he maintained that no, the organization did not need to collect company data outside of contact information. Knowing this is wrong and a waste of an opportunity to gather member data, we took the issue to the VP. Without making it seem like we were going over the manager’s head, we let the VP know that we thought the organization could benefit from collecting additional data as part of the member profile and membership application. We even suggested a package of fields. Sure enough, the VP, who has a bigger picture view, agreed on the demographics. We *could* have dropped the issue after confirming with the manager. We would have had tons of documentation showing that the client rejected the additional fields so that if the client came back to us a year later, we’d be perfectly justified in charging extra money for a change order. But that behavior would have violated Rule #3.

    We try to live Rule #3 and we don’t always succeed. There isn’t always clarity about what’s absolutely right and what’s absolutely wrong. We don’t always realize a decision will be the wrong one in the long run. And clients don’t always agree with us. BUT, I believe that we have an obligation to our clients to at least give it the old college try and help them not make mistakes.

    How about you? Got any stories of a vendor who let you make a mistake or saved you from making a bad decision?

    P.S. I have a total of 23 rules. I’ll try to blog about them all in the future. If you’d like a copy of the list, let me know.

  • Beer and Cream Cheese Agile Methodology Revisited

    Beer and Cream Cheese Agile Methodology Revisited

    Just over a year ago, I blogged about how the MatrixMaxx team was using an agile software methodology we’ve dubbed “beer and cream cheese.”

    MatrixMaxx is Matrix Group’s Web-based association management software (AMS) that is used by dozens of trade associations and professional societies to manage their membership applications and renewals, meeting registrations, committee rosters, tradeshows, sponsorships, foundation fundraising, e-mail lists, and publication sales.

    Beer and cream cheese is the software development methodology we came up with after exploring several agile methodologies, including SCRUM.  While there are many flavors of agile development methods, most are characterized by:

    • Breaking big projects into smaller tasks that can be accomplished in hours or days, never weeks or months.
    • New versions of the software are released in short timeframes, called timeboxes or sprints.  Sprints can last 1 day to 30 days.
    • The goal of each sprint is to produce a working product that the client can use immediately, rather than having to wait months or years for a release, bug fix or new functionality.
    • Each team has a customer representative who represents the client perspective and makes him/herself available to team members.  In the case of SCRUM, there are 3 roles: the ScrumMaster (who serves as the project manager); the Product Owner (who represents the stakeholders/lients); the Team (the staff who do the development work).

    We call our methodology beer and cream cheese because about 18 months ago, Tanya, the MatrixMaxx Director, posted to one of the SCRUM message boards, asking if anyone had experience with having the same person be the ScrumMaster AND the Product Owner.  One ScrumMaster sarcastically remarked, “You CAN do it, but that would be like combining beer and cream cheese.”

    Fast forward one year.  The MatrixMaxx team is still using beer and cream cheese, but our process has changed, and for the better.

    • Where Tanya used to play the role of Product Owner and ScrumMaster, she is now the Product Owner.  Geoff is our Brewmaster.  As a result, Tanya can focus on the product road map and client requirements.
    • Our sprints are now 15 days long.  Major product releases are quarterly, but we put out small enhancements, especially custom enhancements for clients, twice a month.  Clients love this!
    • Although we still primarily use our intranet to manage tasks and requirements, there is a whiteboard in the MatrixMaxx team area that lists tasks that have been designated for the next release/sprint.
    • We’re doing a better job of tracking projects and elements that tend to go over budget.

    We plan to refine our beer and cream cheese process even more over the next year by:

    • Going back to shorter, daily check-ins, which have turned into lengthy discussions about tasks and requirements.  We realize that the entire team does NOT need to be part of all in-depth discussions.
    • Giving each team member one long item and one short item per day to encourage maximum productivity from all team members and help us manage the backlog of small items.
    • Making a renewed commitment to identifying and analyzing tasks that tend to make us fall behind or go over budget.

    BTW, we still hold beer and cream cheese parties where staff bring in baked goods made with beer and cream cheese.  My favorite this year was the dark chocolate cupcakes made with beer and topped with cream cheese frosting. Yum!

    How about you?  What software development methodology does your company use?  Are you an agile shop?  What’s working for you?  And how did you select the methodology that you are using?

  • Why Having a Baby Will Be Good For My Business

    Why Having a Baby Will Be Good For My Business

    I’m having a baby tomorrow (maybe sooner, we’ll see) and then I’ll be home with baby Marcus John.  For a few weeks at least, I’ll be dealing with lack of sleep, no set routine, and hundreds of diaper changes.  The big questions that always pop up when speaking with family, friends, staff, clients and vendors are:  How much time are you taking off and how will your office survive without you?

    The answer to the first question (how much time are you taking off?) is not clear cut.  When you’re a small business owner, you can’t exactly just disappear for a few months. When you’re the owner, the business is your baby, it’s part of your life and your identity.  That said, I’m giving myself the flexibility to work as much or as little as I want, come in when I feel I need to, and decide when I’m ready to come back to the office full-time.

    The answer to the second question (how will the office survive without you?) is “Just fine, thank you very much.”  In fact, just like the last time I was out with my first son, I expect the office to thrive. Here’s what I’ve done to prepare myself and the office for my absence:

    What Is It That Only I Do, or Can Do, At the Office?

    When I first announced to my management team that I was going to have a baby, the questions I asked of myself, the Directors and Project Managers was: “What is it that I do, that only I can do, that you rely on me to do?”  Then we got to work documenting the list and figuring out a plan for getting those tasks done in my absence.

    For example, I review the monthly billing reports after the Project Managers (PMs) have reviewed them to double check that we are properly marking work as billable or unbillable.  Over a period of a couple of weeks, I went over dozens of reports with the PMs, discussed why I question certain items and provided suggestions for how to handle ambiguous items and make sure clients are never surprised by their invoices.  The Director of Client Services will also now review invoices in my absence.

    Documenting What’s in JP’s Brain

    When you’ve been in the Web business for as long as I have (since 1994 but please don’t try to calculate my age!) and when you’re responsible for landing a lot of the company’s business, you just accumulate a lot of knowledge about clients, process, and projects. Even though I use our intranet religiously to document all of my communications with clients and prospects, there’s just a lot of knowledge that I carry around in my brain.

    So over the past few months, I worked with my team to document the strategies, best practices, and potential land mines I’ve encountered while working on myriad projects. I paid special attention to the project components that I tend to spearhead, including Goals and Personas, Content Strategy, Integration with a Back Office CRM (customer relationship management system) or AMS (association management system), CMS (content management system) reviews, and Social Media.  These are now called PM Guides and they live in our wiki. All staff are encouraged to modify them as needed.  The guides are reviewed before the start of each project, and the PMs are loving the sample agendas and notes for running meetings. (more…)

  • The Great “Work From Home” Experiment

    The Great “Work From Home” Experiment

    Man Working From Home with LaptopLast Thursday, when the National Weather Service was calling for a blizzard in the DC area, I had a choice to make:  open on Friday but probably close early, close the office OR keep the office open but let everyone work from home.  On Sunday night, with roads still largely impassable, federal and local governments announcing closures and public transportation down for the count, I faced a similar choice: declare the office closed on Monday and give everyone a snow day OR keep the office open and let everyone work from home.

    While I’m sure most of my staff would have loved a snow day or two, as a small business owner, I know that when my staff isn’t working, we’re not generating billable time, which means a bad month in revenues, or worse.  So, since Friday, I’ve kept the Matrix Group office officially open but let everyone work from home. Here’s why:

    • Most staff appreciated not having to battle the bad roads to keep working and avoid taking vacation days.
    • Although most of our clients are in the DC area, we have clients all over the country; the latter expect us to be open.
    • It’s precisely when our clients are not able to serve their customers and members physically that they rely on their Web sites to be open for business virtually.
    • Letting staff work from home let us put our pandemic/DR plans to the test.

    The results have been mostly good. With the exception of staff who lost power at home, everyone scheduled to work has been able to work.  Here’s what helped: (more…)

  • Campbell Wealth Management Web site Redesign

    Campbell Wealth Management Web site Redesign

    Matrix Group partnered with Campbell Wealth Management a leading financial advisor firm to launch a redesigned Web site.  Matrix Group worked closely with Campbell and his team to create a Web site that strongly connected with his personal philosophy, “to build, manage and protect clients’ financial wealth through a superior level of service with one goal in mind—to enhance their quality of life.” Campbell’s philosophy and approach has been a critical component of the company’s marketing efforts, and was the basis for the Web site’s design.

    Matrix Group:

    • Included a user-friendly navigation that lets visitors know about Campbell Wealth Management’s financial services.
    • Added interactive videos that provide information on financial strategies  and best practices to building, managing and protecting financial assets.
    • Valuable tools and forms to help visitors with their financial planning, including  financial calculators to assess their current performances and outlook.
    • Incorporated information on Campbell and his team, highlighting their accolades and expertise in the financial planning sector.
    • Collaborated with Campbell Wealth to ensure that the site complied with regulatory standards.

    Visit the New Campbell Wealth Management Web site!