Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites: Managing Change, Content, Customer Relationships, and Site Measurement

Maintaining & Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites

Managing Change, Content, Customer Relationships, and Site Measurement

Ashley Friedlein

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Praise for Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites

Copyright

Preface

Part I: Change Management

INTRODUCTION TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Key Areas We Will Cover in Part I

Chapter 1: Reviewing and Reporting Progress

1.1 Management Summary

1.2 Progress Report

1.3 Risks and Issues

Chapter 2: Procedures for Managing Site Updates

2.1 Documentation

2.2 Contact Information

2.3 Categorizing Types of Change

2.4 Change Processes

2.5 Change and Update Requests

2.6 Scheduling Changes

Summary

Part II: Content Management

INTRODUCTION TO CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Key Areas We Will Cover in Part II

Chapter 3: Introducing Content Management

3.1 What Is Content Management?

3.2 Why Is Content Management Needed?

3.3 What Web Content Management Cannot Achieve

Chapter 4: Content Management in Action: A Practical Example

4.1 The Home Page

4.2 Content Collection, Management, and Publishing

4.3 Workflow

Chapter 5: Key Concepts and Building Blocks

5.1 Structuring Content

5.2 The Content Model

5.3 Content Objects and Classes

5.4 Content versus Functionality

5.5 Separation of Content and Presentation

5.6 Metadata

5.7 Templates

5.8 Personalization

5.9 XML

5.10 Content Life Cycle

5.11 Workflow

Chapter 6: Content Management Systems (CMS)

6.1 What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?

6.2 Selecting a CMS

6.3 Evolving toward a CMS

Chapter 7: Tackling a Content Management Project

7.1 Project Clarification

7.2 Solution Definition

7.3 Project Specification

7.4 Content

7.5 Design and Construction

7.6 Testing, Launch, and Handover

7.7 Maintenance

7.8 Review and Evaluation

Summary

Part III: Customer Relationship Management

INTRODUCTION TO CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Key Areas We Will Cover in Part III

Chapter 8: A CRM Primer

8.1 What Is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?

8.2 eCRM: The Digital Opportunity

8.3 The Business Case

8.4 Customer Value

8.5 The Single Customer View

Chapter 9: Understanding Your Users

9.1 Segmentation

9.2 Customer Data

Chapter 10: Personalization

10.1 What Personalization Is and What It Promises

10.2 What We’ve Learned So Far

10.3 How to Personalize

Chapter 11: Community

11.1 What Community Is and What It Promises

11.2 What We’ve Learned So Far

Chapter 12: Customer Service

12.1 What Online Customer Service Is and What It Promises

12.2 What We’ve Learned So Far

Summary

Part IV: Site Measurement

INTRODUCTION TO SITE MEASUREMENT

Key Areas We Will Cover in Part IV

Chapter 13: The Promises and Challenges of Web Site Measurement

13.1 Promises

13.2 Challenges

Chapter 14: The Evolution of E-intelligence

14.1 The Arrival and Development of E-metrics

14.2 Increasing Sophistication and Customer-Centricity

Chapter 15: Measurement Approaches and Techniques

15.1 Site-Centric Measurement

15.2.1 Metrics

15.2.2 Measurement Techniques

Chapter 16: Reporting and Analysis

16.1 Defining a Measurement Framework

16.2 The Importance of Analysis

16.3 Design for Analysis

16.4 Choosing a Measurement Tool

16.5 Report Scheduling and Distribution

16.6 Example Reports

Chapter 17: How to Improve a Web Site

17.1 Get the Basics Really Right

17.2 A Combined Hard and Soft Approach

17.3 Content Management

17.4 Improving the Moments of Truth

17.5 Usability

17.6 Viral Marketing Tools

17.7 E-commerce

Chapter 18: Tackling a Web Site Measurement Project

18.1 Tactical Initiatives

18.2 Process for Medium to Large Projects

18.3 Project Clarification

18.4 Solution Definition

18.5 Project Specification

18.6 Content

18.7 Design and Construction

18.8 Testing, Launch, and Handover

18.9 Maintenance

18.10 Review and Evaluation

Summary

Resources

Index

Praise for Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites

If you run a Web site, own a Web site, or are merely responsible for the success of a Web site, this is the book you need. Big picture philosophy and detailed practicality make Maintaining and Evolving Successful Commercial Web Sites the appropriate practicum for progressive Web professionals.

—Jim Sterne

Author, Speaker, Consultant, Target Marketing of Santa Barbara

Ashley Friedlein takes four very complex but important subjects and boils them down for you to their essentials. With an abundance of practical examples and a strong feeling for what common sense dictates, he leads you to the heart of what it takes to keep a big site running and improving.

—Bob Boiko

Author, The Content Management Bible (Hungry Minds, Inc.) and President, Metatorial Services Inc.

Ashley Friedlein makes a much-needed contribution to the (often neglected) area of Web site management. Using clear language and straightforward case studies, Friedlein masterfully tackles the post-launch phase of Web development. This book will be sought after by all Web site managers.

—Hurol Inan

Author, Measuring the Success of Your Website (Longman) and Consultant

Copyright

Senior Editor Tim Cox

Publishing Services Manager Edward Wade

Editorial Coordinator Stacie Pierce

Project Management Matrix Productions Inc.

Cover Design Yvo Riezebos Design

Cover Image Getty Images/David Gould

Text Design Side by Side Studios

Composition Omegatype Typography, Inc.

Copyeditor Frank Hubert

Proofreader Toni Zuccarini Ackley

Indexer Helios Productions

Interior Printer The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

Cover Printer Phoenix Color Corp.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks or registered trademarks. In all instances in which Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is aware of a claim, the product names appear in initial capital or all capital letters. Readers, however, should contact the appropriate companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration.

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers

An Imprint of Elsevier Science

340 Pine Street, Sixth Floor

San Francisco, CA 94104-3205

www.mkp.com

© 2003 by Ashley Friedlein

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002110022

ISBN: 1-55860-830-3

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Preface

So you’ve got a Web site. Now what?

Now it needs to be maintained. Now the pressure is on to maximize the returns on the investment made in the site. Senior management wants reliable information on how the site is performing, customers need to be better serviced, and it is time to go to the next phase to stay competitive. Internal and customer expectations continue to rise.

As an industry, we have had a bit of time to build experience and learn what works and what does not. We are more confident in the basics. But now we are expected not only to squeeze as much performance and value as possible out of existing Web sites, but also tackle more advanced and complex issues such as content management, site measurement, personalization, and integration of the Web site into core business processes and objectives. The challenge is to increase quality and competitive advantage and yet be as cost efficient as possible to ensure profitability.

This challenge is all the more daunting because we must confront the following realities:

 Designing and launching a Web site are just the tip of the iceberg. Once the site goes live, it needs constant attention and nurturing to flourish. Site users and project stakeholders are unforgiving and fickle creatures who expect only the best and quickly get frustrated if the site does not deliver. The content must always be relevant and up to date, the site must be easy to use and contain no errors, and customer service must be fast and effective. It turns out that maintaining and evolving the site are bigger commitments than launching it.

 It is becoming impossible to manage the information overload. When the site was small and only a limited number of people had access and an interest in it, it was just about possible to manage content updates to meet customer and business requirements. Now things are going multilingual, multiserver, multiplatform, and everyone wants to be involved. Real-time, dynamic, syndicated, outsourced, personalized. How are we going to tame the information beast?

 It is no longer acceptable for Web sites to be unaccountable. Once upon a time, Web site investment was a no-brainer. Despite the fact that the Internet was always touted as the most accountable medium, proper measurement, analysis, and reporting were afterthoughts. Not so any longer. Now solutions must be accountable. Yet more information, processes, and technical complexity must be confronted.

 Web site development requires integration with the whole business. The industry has learned that great Web sites do not exist in a digital silo. They are just one weapon among many in the battle to acquire and retain customers. They must be integrated with the core business and deliver value to it. A Web site touches all parts of the organization and requires a complex mix of skills and input to deliver, maintain, and evolve. With increasing companywide integration and higher levels of decentralized control and ownership, it is becoming very complicated to see and manage the big picture.

To grapple with and overcome these challenges, we need to understand the problems and the needs both of the business and its customers, and we need tools, processes, and approaches to break the challenges down into manageable chunks. It is important to understand the relevant theories and concepts, but above all, we need to have knowledge that can be put into practice.

As the industry enters adolescence, I hope this book helps ease some of the growing pains that we are all facing.

How This Book Can Help You

As the title suggests, this book will help you maintain and evolve successful commercial Web sites. Although the book assumes that you already have a Web site, most of it is also highly relevant to the building of a new Web site or the complete redevelopment of an existing site. For example, the transition to a full content management system typically occurs at the same time as a site redesign and relaunch.

This book is the second that I have written. The first, Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites, concentrates on the A–Z of launching a new site from nothing. It also covers the principles and practices of project management for the online environment. If you are looking for a Web development method or want to find out more about the discipline of Web project management, managing a Web project team, managing budgets, time lines, tasks, deliverables, milestones, testing, prototyping, and documentation, then you should refer to my first book.

This second book accompanies the first and goes into a lot more detail on the specific challenges of maintaining and evolving Web sites, which are the final two stages of the Web development method proposed in the first book. This book is less about providing a single A–Z process and more about providing the knowledge, tools, approaches, and processes to manage the key site maintenance and evolution projects that you are likely to face.

At the time of writing, there are only a few books on the market that address the management challenges of, say, Web content management or Web site measurement. There are, as ever, plenty of business and marketing management books that talk about concepts such as electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) but few that really help with the realities of delivering on these strategies. This book aims to convey the necessary thinking and concepts as clearly as possible but concentrates on the practicalities. It covers the key areas of site maintenance and evolution to be as comprehensive a manual as possible in supporting ongoing Web projects.

Much of my own experience is in working with larger scale commercial Web sites, and the content of this book certainly applies to those. However, this book is about best practices, techniques, and approaches, and they can be used to the benefit of projects of all sizes. The budgets and resources may vary, but the end goals, processes, and concepts are the same.

Although the book refers to Web sites and customers in a way that would suggest this is for business-to-consumer public Web sites, all of the issues tackled have just as much relevance to business-to-business sites, virtual private networks, intranets, extranets, or any other Web-enabled, networked environment. They all need to manage content, report on performance, manage users, and manage change. There may be differences in the goals of each site, in the technology, and in the business processes, but the maintenance and evolution challenges are the same. Although other digital channels, such as interactive TV, mobile phones, or networked kiosks, have some specific challenges, they too face the same issues. The platform for delivering these digital propositions is increasingly being centralized, not necessarily physically but in a common networked environment, in an effort to improve the consistency and quality of experience that the customer gets and to ease the pain and cost of multisite maintenance.

This book will help you answer the following questions and others like them:

 How can I better manage changes to the Web site?

 How can I scale up to allow more contributions to the site and more content and still maintain quality and control?

 How can I deliver Web site personalization?

 What is content management and how do I go about it?

 How can I improve the customers’ experience on the site?

 How do I measure and report on how well the site is doing?

 How do I maximize the value the site creates?

 What is eCRM and what does this actually mean for the site?

 How do I ensure that what we do now is the best platform for the future?

Audience

Whatever the job name or description, this book is for people who are involved with managing projects of all sizes related to Web site maintenance and evolution. The book is written assuming that the projects are being done in house, but all of the principles, practices, and processes are the same if you are a freelance consultant, a Web agency, or any other contracted third party.

The following sorts of roles will find the book relevant:

 Production: project managers, producers, Web managers, Webmasters, production managers, quality control, testers, developers, designers

 Editorial: editors, copywriters, content contributors/administrators

 Commercial and marketing: e-commerce managers, marketing managers, business analysts, market researchers

 Customer service: eCRM/customer service managers

 Specialists: usability engineers, information architects, management information services specialists, data analysts

This book is aimed at both the generalists who need to understand, tackle, and manage a range of specific issues and at the specialists who want to understand how their areas of expertise fit into the wider picture and what else is going on around them.

Content

The book is structured into four main parts plus a resources section at the end. You can read any of the four parts of the book, Change Management, Content Management, Customer Relationship Management, or Site Measurement, as stand-alone sections for greater insight into each of these areas. There is an introduction and conclusion for each part that summarizes the key learning points.

You may also choose to read the entire book from start to end. I begin with Change Management because this will help you introduce control to the way in which your site is maintained. This is followed by Content Management and Customer Relationship Management so that you can then focus on improving the way you manage the two most fundamental and important elements of your site: its users and its content. Finally, the part on Site Measurement will ensure you properly understand what is going on with your site, how it is delivering business value, and how you might improve it.

Throughout the book, you will come across tips, notes, case studies, and cross-references to support the text and help you get the most from it.

Acknowledgments

My greatest thanks and love to my wife, Annabel. It is very hard to write unless you can get the space and time to concentrate and focus. She helped in the unenviable task of proofreading, and she pushed me on if I looked like I was flagging, but most of all, she took care of so many things that would otherwise have distracted me. This is all the greater a sacrifice on her part as my resulting ability to focus on the book meant I spent longer periods of time less focused on her. Now that she is writing a play, we will see how well I do with roles reversed.

I was happy to stick with the publishers of my first book, Morgan Kaufmann, and they have continued to provide excellent support and commitment throughout the process of writing this second book. Thanks in particular to Tim Cox, my Editor, not only for his expert editorial guidance but also his flexibility and support in the contractual negotiations. Stacie Pierce has been wonderfully efficient and reliable in managing the whole process, in particular the reader review feedback, which is always invaluable but takes a lot of work to make happen. At the time of writing, the book is just being delivered into the safe hands of Edward Wade, Publishing Services Manager, who I must thank for turning my assorted digital files into a book that I am proud to see on the shelves.

One of the most important things in Web development is to work collaboratively with a team of experts and to continually iterate and improve your site. With a book, you can do this at least until the point of printing, and I would like to thank my reviewers, clients, and those who supplied case study material for working with me to provide their insight and expertise, which certainly improved this book. My reviewers were Dave Robertson, Steve Caudill, Mike Stone, Morgan Everett, Katie Clapp, Cherelyn Were, Amanda Taylor, and Terrance Crow. For the case studies, thanks to Nick Andrews of WHSmith Online, Jeremy Tapp of Magicalia, Jonathan Hilton of Wheel, Julian Everett and Gordon Maynard of Teletext, Elin Parry of Channel 5, Dave Robertson of Autoglass, Linda McDougall of Nedstat, Andrew Mayer of Netpoll, Paul Coombs of Channel 4, and Andrew Davies of FirstDirect.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to all the other authors out there, some of whom I know personally but all of whom have helped develop the industry, furthered the debate, and shared their expertise, knowledge, and passion. The many books that I have read have helped develop my own ideas as well as give me new ones. In particular, I would thank the authors of the books I recommend in the final part of this book for their outstanding efforts.

A special thank you to Matthew O’Riordan, the cofounder of e-consultancy, not only for giving so much of his valuable time to support my personal projects, such as the online companion material for this book, but also for teaching me so much about how best to implement all those vital behind the scenes elements of Web sites—content management systems, information architectures, measurement, data exchange, and so on. Web development is at its best when working closely with a team of people you trust and respect, and I have greatly enjoyed my partnership with Matthew.

Finally, my thanks to the Internet for making it possible for this book to be written in France by a U.K. author for a U.S. publisher for a global market.

Part I

Change Management

INTRODUCTION TO CHANGE MANAGEMENT

It is well recognized that effectively managing change is one of the hardest things to do successfully in Web development projects. Not only do scope and requirements often change, but the underlying technologies and medium are continually evolving. Furthermore, the markets have seen roller coaster change that has often dramatically affected business models, budgets, or project remits.

Change is endemic to the Web, so rather than fight it we have to get used to working with it. This requires finding the right balance between proper planning and specifications, on the one hand, which provide structure, control, and confidence, and hyper-reactive, accelerated development, which provides speed and flexibility, on the other. The particular blend of the two extremes that you use in your own approach will depend on a number of things: the nature of the project itself, the heritage of working practices within the organization, and the type of people involved, among others. External factors, such as market conditions, also play a strong part: In the heyday of the Internet bubble, process was very much sacrificed at the altar of speed, whereas we have seen quality and accountability come back into favor, demanding more rigorous project processes and documentation.

This part of the book focuses on how to manage day-to-day change when a site is being maintained and is evolving. This is change that is often happening outside a specific project. Not only is there lots of this change, as everyone has their corner of the site that they want to see updated, but it is usually the kind of change that is least planned for, least predictable, and least structured. As the frenetic activity of project delivery gives way to the more mundane nature of daily site updates, it soon becomes clear that unless you can manage both planned and unplanned changes to the site, things can soon dissolve into a disorder that ultimately affects the overall quality of the site, with inconsistencies and errors creeping in. You will no doubt appreciate that the people and processes of Web development are much harder to master than the technology itself, and it is precisely people and processes, not technology, that must be conquered to efficiently maintain a Web site from day to day.

The greatest amount of change occurs in updating site content. Thus, you might think that this section belongs in Part II on Content Management. However, not all sites use a full content management system nor are they ever likely to do so. Equally, even those that will migrate toward full content management in the longer term will need to go through a stage of more ad hoc content management on the way. Good quality change management, as outlined here, helps address much of the pain that is typically felt by site maintenance teams. In some cases, such teams think a content management system (CMS) is the answer to their woes when in fact better change management is all that is required. In any case, a CMS is a tool to facilitate processes, but it cannot define them for you. The work that you do in analyzing and introducing change processes is very similar to the work that you have to do in defining workflow for a CMS so nothing is wasted. Therefore, before you spend a lot of money on a CMS, it makes sense as a first step to ensure your change management processes are up to scratch.

Key Areas We Will Cover in Part I

 The importance of regular meetings to communicate progress to the project team and stakeholders. What meetings should you hold and what should be covered?

 The role and contents of management summaries, progress reports, and risks and issues registers in effectively managing and reporting on Web site maintenance projects.

 The role and importance of documentation. What documents do you need to effectively maintain a Web site and manage changes to it?

 How to effectively manage changes and additions to Web sites by categorizing change and designing change processes, schedules, and documentation to suit sites at different stages of evolution.

1

Reviewing and Reporting Progress

Before we look at how you might create a framework and processes for managing less structured change, it is worth noting that even though the main development project may be finished, it still makes sense to have a process for reviewing and reporting on progress during the maintenance phase of a Web site. This has several benefits:

 Regular contact with the project sponsors. It is likely that during the main development phase of the project you had regular progress and status meetings with project sponsors and other senior management. Ideally, you will have had a regular slot in their calendars. Rather than let this slip, if you can continue to meet, even if only briefly, it helps make sure that attention does not drift away from the project. These senior sponsors will have been through a lot and seen everything that went on to launch the project and so will be more committed to ensuring its continued success. They will have the clout to maintain organizational focus, galvanize resources, and tackle risks and issues. As new ideas and new projects arise, they also will provide the best platform for deciding how best to take these forward.

 Continued structure and discipline. When you are working to a well-defined and carefully wrought project plan with any number of interdependencies, it is easy for the project team, and its individual members, to remain focused and motivated. The project plan should be something that everyone gave their input to and thus tacitly agreed to be bound by: a contract of mutual, negotiated responsibilities. However, once you enter the maintenance phase and the team perhaps feels tired and deflated, lacking the adrenaline rush induced by challenging deadlines, you need to make a real effort to maintain commitment and focus. If you continue to review and report progress, this forces the team to be accountable, to be assessed against more measurable and specific targets. As suggested earlier, if these activities continue to be reported to the project sponsors, then impetus is easier to maintain.

 A tool for managing smaller projects. During the requirements gathering, design, and construction phases of any major Web project, many tasks must inevitably be put aside or are overlooked during the intense initial launch phase. These will be a mixture of work planned for subsequent phases of the project and any number of smaller projects necessary to complete tasks missed during the main development effort such as documentation, training, and integration work. Depending on the nature of these tasks, you may wish to add them as part of the next phase of the project, manage them through a series of individual change requests, or create a set of smaller miniprojects. If the requirements are clear and the scale of the miniproject is small enough, it makes no sense to do extensive planning, specification, and documentation for each project. Instead, you can use the review and reporting framework as a tool for tracking the progress of these smaller projects.

The following three sections look at ways you can monitor and report on ongoing work.

1.1 Management Summary

Management summaries should be prepared for presentation and distribution to project sponsors and stakeholders as well as other senior management as required. These summaries should not be longer than a page or two and should only include top line information about the key performance indicators, progress, and decision points. It is better to do shorter, less highly polished summaries more often than to wait too long and try to produce exhaustive reports and analyses. If management wants to see more detail on a particular area, you can always do that as requested. Otherwise, the sooner issues, trends, or decision points can be highlighted and addressed, the better. Aim to produce management summaries at least monthly, but preferably weekly.

Figure 1.1 shows a simple example of what a management summary might contain with brief explanatory notes for each heading. Note in particular the review of action points generated by previous management summaries. This is particularly important as it holds people accountable, including senior management, and gives a sense that progress is being made. It also allows everyone to see how much work is being requested, by whom, and of whom. Often during the maintenance phase, the bigger picture can be lost, and business groups only see what they are interested in, appreciating less the effort that is going in elsewhere.

Figure 1.1 Sample management summary.

1.2 Progress Report

Management summaries are not particularly helpful for day-to-day operational management of tasks and projects. With the mixture of projects and ad hoc work that is likely to be around during the site’s ongoing maintenance, you need to capture, document, and manage all the individual tasks. Doing so provides the necessary levels of accountability and structure as well as creates an audit trail of work undertaken and completed. These progress reports provide the detail not present in the management summaries, which can be very useful for later reference.

Whereas management summaries are a snapshot view, progress reporting and reviewing the status of tasks are ongoing processes. Documentation is continually updated. The purpose of creating and updating the documentation is less to provide time-specific benchmarks and more to provide a tool that can be used as a starting and reference point for meetings and work management. Ideally, progress review meetings should be held weekly with all relevant project team members present.

TIP

   Progress Review Meetings

Holding such meetings on a Monday afternoon is a good idea: You have the morning to update progress from the previous week and think through the activities and issues for the week ahead.

Figure 1.2 shows a simple format for reporting on progress: focusing on tasks. This works most naturally when created from a project plan that will contain all the relevant information, except perhaps the notes. Indeed, if you have a project plan and all your work is project focused, then you can use just the project plan itself as the basis of review meetings. If the completion status of tasks is being kept up to date by the project manager consulting individual team members, the review meeting is a chance for the entire team to get together to understand the overall status. However, using a project plan for reporting progress may not always work. There may not be a project plan; there may be several project plans as well as individual tasks that need tracking; or some team members may not clearly understand the presentation format of the plan. Not everyone feels at home with Gantt charts, for example. Keeping a single, simple list of tasks and progress makes it easy for everyone to contribute and understand.

Figure 1.2 Keeping track of task progress.

TIP

   Online Documentation

If you can, you should try and move toward providing documentation online. In particular, you will benefit from having documents available online that need to be regularly referred to and updated by a variety of people. Management summaries may be too sensitive, with too small a distribution, or require too much specialized manipulation to be worth doing as HTML. However, progress reports, systems documentation, risk and issues registers, and training and guideline documentation are all ideally suited to being online. Benefits include:

 Write once, read many, meaning the document is centrally maintained but can be accessed by many.

 Access can be remote, on the move, personalized, and adjusted to suit the permission level of the user.

 Form-based data capture ensures ease of formatting and quality of structure of data.

 Manipulation of data for specialized views or reports is much easier; for example, sorting and reporting by task owner or task priority.

 Amendments and notes can easily be added with the user and time of update logged.

 Any system or templates you devise can easily be replicated and distributed around the organization or used on new projects.

1.3 Risks and Issues

You may have kept a risk and issues register during the main development phase of your Web project. As with progress reporting, you should continue to maintain this and use it as one of your key management tools. The types of risks and issues will change, but the need to manage them and the way you manage them do not. A progress report and a risks and issues register are two cornerstone documents that can form the basis of weekly update and review meetings for the core operational team.

A risk is something that has not yet occurred but which might become an issue. An issue is the negative effect of a risk having occurred. Typically, you will have more risks than issues as, ideally, not all risks will turn into issues either because you manage to proactively prevent the issue occurring or because it just does not happen. It is better to put down every risk and troubling fear that you have than to store your concerns internally so as not to appear out of control. Sharing your perceived risks alleviates the burden on you and spreads the sense of responsibility.

A risk register is a tool for ensuring that identified risks are addressed and monitored. The earlier a risk can be identified, the greater the chance that it will never become an issue that adversely affects ongoing work. Table 1.1 describes typical risk elements that you would use in risk analysis and reporting.

Table 1.1

Risk elements.

Tables 1.2 through 1.4 give suggested rating mechanisms that can assign values to some of the foregoing risk elements. Assigning fixed numerical or letter values has the advantage of allowing easier sorting and reporting by value. However, descriptive text is also usually necessary in explaining the finer points and details. Values give a relative notion of scale, but they do not explain the reasons behind the rating, which are vital to understand so you can take actions to stop the risk from developing into an issue. Status is a useful risk element to assign a fixed value to so that you can filter out closed risks and concentrate immediately on new and open risks.

Table 1.2

Severity/consequence rating table.

Table 1.3

Probability/vulnerability rating table.

Table 1.4

Risk status codes.

What kinds of potential, or actual, problems are you likely to need to manage and track as risks and issues when maintaining a site? Here are a few examples that could be project specific or ongoing:

 Downtime due to load. The server crashes or the site becomes unacceptably slow due to surges in traffic resulting from advertising. A prime time TV advertisement, for example, is likely to cause a huge peak in traffic. Load projections and adequate system redundancy and load balancing would help keep this risk from becoming an issue.

 Downtime caused by technical maintenance work. Examples include a server being moved or servers being rebooted. Issue avoidance measures might involve contingency planning and backup systems.

 Data backup fails. Data backup and archiving might fail because of configuration changes, software failure, or full storage devices. The impact of having no backups is potentially enormous. Issue avoidance measures could involve routine maintenance processes, monitoring and alerting services, multiple backup systems, and disaster recovery planning.

 Fall in site quality through insufficient testing. If there are too many changes and updates being made to the site with insufficient resources and processes, the temptation may be to cut corners on testing. There is a very real risk here that quality will be compromised through inconsistencies and errors that adversely affect the user experience. Issue avoidance measures might include additional resources and mandatory release processes that include testing and sign-off from a quality assurance (QA) representative.

 Advertising going out without the destination page existing. For example, an advertisement might include a dedicated URL to which customers are referred. If that destination does not exist, someone will be in big trouble. Issues like this should be avoided by proper interdepartmental communications and proper authorization and testing processes.

 Email fails or malfunctions. If much of your site functionality relies on email, such as registration or order confirmations, then email failure is a serious problem. Nor do you want to find out too late that your email application has started mass mailing your customer database. This risk will be particularly pertinent if you are changing email systems or introducing new email features. System monitoring and alerts, standby systems, problem escalation, and fallback procedures help prevent this kind of risk from becoming an issue.

 Security. There are numerous potential security risks that unfortunately are not likely to go away. Issue avoidance is in the form of effective security policies, procedures, and reviews.

If you wish, you can have an issues log that is separate from the risk register. By creating a separate document, you can really draw focus and attention to the few issues that must be resolved. Risks can sometimes seem too vague or unlikely, whereas everyone recognizes an issue. That said, more documentation than is strictly necessary is rarely a good thing because it only increases administration time. If you assign and maintain the status value of R (risk) or I (issue), then there is no reason risks and issues cannot be managed via the same document. As mentioned earlier, if this register can be maintained and accessed online, you will see further increases in efficiency as problems are flagged and dealt with more quickly by a team that can be more aware of what is happening.

2

Procedures for Managing Site Updates

In the preceding pages, I provided some basic tools that you can use to report and review progress as well as manage risks and issues. These tools represent good project management practice, and they are as applicable during the launch as they are in the subsequent maintenance and evolution phases of a Web site. But what about the specifics of managing updates, changes, amendments, and additions? There can be a lot of pain and frustration involved in managing these when there are no accepted processes in place. Rather than swimming against a constant tide of requests, you want a system that runs smoothly and efficiently.

This part of the book focuses on creating processes and using approaches and tools to manage changes to Web sites. The benefits come principally in the resulting administrative efficiencies and controlled consistency of quality. However, the changes themselves still largely have to be carried out manually.