Agency partnerships are difficult and subject to failure based on some fundamental principles:
- Inadequate website scoping process
- An antiquated website development process
- Old school methodology for project management
My past experience has revealed the fundamental flaws in these processes and I have a solution to fix these.
First, most think of a website as a product to be created and not a software development service. So they build it and don't do anything with it. This is why Luke Summerfield came up with Growth Driven Design.
The other problem is using a waterfall-style approach to project management. Agile is the way to go here. This fits with GDD as an ongoing approach and updates as digital marketing activities occur. So we need a launchpad website and a plan for ongoing updates.
We need to rethink our approach to websites completely and not fall into these old methodologies.
This is why we can't give an estimate for building a website because it doesn't really fit with our approach. For us to Assess, Diagnose, and Advise, we need to know more things before giving a proposal and plan.
Since I'm improving our process here at Softwired, I'd like to take you through this as if you were a prospect if you are OK with that. Here are the steps we need to take:
- Evaluate your needs for a website and SEO
- Write scope of work for all requirements of the initial project
- Create a plan to deliver a proposal for the initial website and ongoing work
Even a marketing website without special features can have pitfalls unless we follow step #2. This is where most agencies fail because the client doesn't have the proper expectations set upfront. For projects that require special features and integrations, we need to be paid upfront for the scope of work or project specification.
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