web-project-management
Ten tips for scoping your e-commerce platform
Feb 1st
1. What are your project goals?
Start by defining commercial objectives – it’s essential you know how your e-commerce platform supports the overall business so that you can prioritise project elements and evaluate each solution provider’s ability to deliver core functionality to support targets.
For example, if a primary goal is to build a solution that can scale to cope with rapid traffic growth and seasonal spikes, you need a partner that offers a robust and scalable hosting solution with excellent technical support.
2. Who is responsible for what?
To keep your project on time and to budget, avoid duplication of effort and internal confusion. If you’re in chaos, the project manager at your chosen solution provider will struggle to hit milestones.
You need a single project sponsor at Board level (too many cooks, broth etc), a project manager who is the go-to person for your solution provider and a project team which supports your PM. It’s essential that for each person involved, their line manager supports their involvement and has allocated resource to this project. It can’t be left as a “when I’ve got time” approach. If you want a successful e-commerce project, take it seriously across the business.
3. Which stakeholder groups do you need to involve?
Involving the relevant people upfront has two benefits; you get visibility of the impact the e-commerce channel has on other areas of your business, and you can tackle the politics that can impede project delivery.
Humans are complex things. By making people feel that they have a stake in the project, you can reduce the internal barriers. Just make sure they don’t try and take over. Personal fiefdoms can be an issue, so protect your project.
4. Visualise your in-house technology map
I’ve always found this a great starting point when defining technical requirements. Get your IT team to map out the systems architecture to illustrate inter-dependencies between internal and external systems.
You need to understand how each element of the e-commerce platform (database, CMS, catalogue manager etc) interacts with other systems and what data exchange formats your business supports.
Work with your IT team (and external suppliers) to understand any restrictions that must be catered for within the new platform as well as areas for improvement where you would like the solution provider to add value with their expertise.
5. What are the individual requirements of each business unit?
Having got people excited, it’s now time to find out what they want. Set up meetings with key people and drill down into how they interact with the e-commerce platform, what they like/dislike and how they think it could support them more effectively. Getting these requirements accurately defined helps you prioritise project elements and cuts time/cost further down the line.
Don’t fly blind. Produce a clear agenda for each meeting and circulate in advance clarifying how you would like them to prepare. Start each meeting with a clear summary of objectives and try to make them feel that this is a positive experience, not a grilling interview.
6. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current platform?
You don’t want to reinvent the wheel. If something works well (back this up with your analytics and voice-of-customer data…if you have it) make sure it is documented. Keeping what’s good is as important as addressing what’s not and will help manage the project scope/cost.
I worked with a client who wanted to change the entire checkout process, thinking it was confusing. Looking at the Google Analytics stats, the last two stages of the checkout had excellent conversion. We revised the requirement to include provision for testing of checkout pages to optimise basket-to-order conversion.
7. What are your success criteria?
Define your top level critical success factors, both financial and non-financial. This helps sharpen the mind to focus on scoping requirements that add value and aren’t just “nice to have” and is really important when evaluating potential solution providers.
For example, a success factor could be reducing the time it takes to load new products to the web catalogue and increasing the automatic categorisation and population of data fields. Having this clearly defined helps you evaluate the user interface at demo time.
8. What do you expect from a strategic partner?
In my opinion, 80% of e-commerce platform requirements are hygiene factors. The solution should have advanced search capabilities, support multiple templates, enable dynamic merchandising etc.
What sets people apart is the soft skills that they bring to the partnership and their ability to work with you to evolve your online presence. Define what’s important to you in a strategic partner and explain what evidence you would like to see.
For example, in a recent ITT I outlined the need for industry presence and contribution to thought leadership as two key qualities for the successful partner. We wanted to see how active people were in exchanging views and offering advice proactively.
9. What is your e-commerce roadmap?
Rome wasn’t built in a day and it’s likely that you can’t deliver all your platform needs with the budget you’ve had signed off. Project phasing is important, so you need to outline your roadmap to chart what functionality and capabilities you want to have and by when. This helps solution providers phase the development approach to manage budget and keep the scope realistic to meet project milestones.
10. How are you going to evaluate solution providers?
I’ve sat in meetings where people have been unable to decide who offers the best fit solution because they’re not sure what they’re comparing.
Before you go to market, create a scoring matrix. This maps each element of the ITT into a spreadsheet with a maximum score. The maximum score for each element is weighted depending on priority level. See the image to the left for an example.
Compare apples with apples. By using a uniform scoring matrix, you can evaluate individual project elements as well as overall suitability. Believe me it really does make decision making a lot quicker.
So what do you think?
I know this does not cover every element of a project scoping methodology but it should help you plan your approach and think about what you need to do. My advice is get the un-sexy planning stuff right before you get excited about bringing in people to pitch their wares.
Related Blogs
- Related Blogs on Ten tips for scoping your e-commerce platform
Web Design & Build Request For Proposal (RFP)
Jan 23rd
About this RFP Template
If you’re considering working with a web design services provider, our Request for Proposal (RFP) template and guidance notes will improve your procurement process.
Focused across website design and build, this template will help you construct a comprehensive statement of your company’s needs.
Contents
This request for proposal template contains guidelines surrounding:
- Project brief
- Response expectations and required timelines
- Timescales
- Evaluation criteria
- Detailed service questions
- Background of the company
- USPs for your company
- Market and competitor experience
- Website objectives
- Implementation
- Measurement and reporting
- Due Diligence
Download the (free) Sample RFP for the full Table of Contents.
Who this Template is For
Our RFPs are for any marketer needing the services of a third party supplier or agency.
Level of Expertise
This template is designed for all levels. For further information on the topic, see our Related Resources.
Related Resources
Want to understand best practices? Check out our Effective Web Design Guide
Five glorious presentations on visual thinking
Jan 23rd
Visual Thinking
By Chris Finlay.
An Introduction to Visual Thinking
By Ryan Coleman.
The Value of Visual Thinking in Social Business
By David Armano.
The ten and a half commandments of visual thinking
Via whatidiscover.
Visual and Creative Thinking: What We Learned From Peter Pan and Willy Wonka
By Kelsey Ruger.
[Joyous visual thinking image by jonny goldstein via Flickr, various rights reserved]
Web Project Management
Jan 23rd
Managing web projects is difficult: mixed teams, experts in different areas and stakeholders frequently pull you in different directions and tight deadlines add additional pressures. Throw in changing requirements, high expectations, tight budgets and time restrictions and what is needed is a workable project management technique to provide structure and control that’s flexible enough to handle evolving requirements. This course adopts an agile approach that combines the right level of control with flexibility.
Benchmarking site performance can be misleading
Jan 23rd
KPIs vary greatly by business sector, and even within
subsectors there is wide variance: think flights versus holidays or food retail
versus clothing retail.
Even comparing against your competitors with identically
defined goals is fraught with gross approximations.
The exact path that visitors will take to complete a goal and the quality of
their user experience along the way will vary for every website.
Slight changes
in these can have a major impact on conversion rates. I deliberately emphasize
the phrase identically defined goals here, as
definitions from different organizations can become blurred.
For example,
retail managers will often wish to differentiate existing customer visits from
non-customer visits. Quoting a standard conversion rate across an industry can
therefore be misleading.
Also, consider that e-commerce conversion rates
can be measured in a variety of ways:
- The number of conversions / total
number of visits to the website - The number of conversions / total
number of visitors to the website - The number of conversions / total
number of visits that add to cart - The number of conversions / total
number of visitors that add to cart
In the preceding list you can also substitute
the word ‘transactions’ for ‘conversions.’ That is, a visitor may complete a
purchase and enjoy the experience so much that they return to make an
additional purchase within the same visit session. Depending on the web
analytics tool used and the preference of the organization, that can be defined
as one conversion with two transactions, or two conversions with two
transactions.
Note, if you are a Google Analytics user, your reports would show one conversion and two transactions, as the visitor has converted to a customer and this can happen only once during their session.
Other onsite factors that can greatly affect
conversion rates, and therefore muddy the waters for benchmarking, include the
following:
- Your website’s search engine
visibility (organic and paid search listings) - You website’s usability and
accessibility (is your site easy to navigate?) - Whether a purchase requires
registration up front—its exasperating to see how many sites require this. Put
it at the end of the transaction process. - Your page response and download
times—page bloat is a conversion killer. - Page content quality and imagery—it
goes without saying that these should be a professional standard. - The use of trust factors such as safe
shopping logos, a privacy policy, a warranty, use of encryption for payment
pages, client testimonials, etc. -
The existence of broken links or
broken images—these destroy the user experience. - Quick and accurate onsite product
searching - Whether your website works in all
major browsers
As you can see, comparing apples with apples is
complicated. By all means benchmark yourself against your peers. It can be an
interesting and energizing comparison. However, I emphasize the need for
internal benchmarking as the main drivers for your website’s success.
10 kickass crowdsourcing sites for your business
Jan 23rd
Check them out…
Logo design = 99designs
Need a logo? No problem. Simply turn your logo / design project needs into a contest on 99designs. Submit a brief and determine a fee for the contest winner (minimum is around $150), then sit back and watch the crowd go to work. More than 40,000 designers that use 99designs. After all the submissions are in you can choose a design. What could be simpler? I’ll be using this one imminently…
Brand names = namethis
Not dissimilar to 99designs, this is a way of creating a 48-hour contest to find a brand name for your venture. The namethis community suggests names, and then votes on the best ones. Fees are paid to the best three ideas. It costs $99 to harness the namethis crowdbrain.
Business innovation = Chaordix
“When you take direction from employees, customers, partners and other people passionate about your business, you will outperform the competition.”
Spawned from now defunct crowdsourcing startup Cambrian House, Chaordix is an enterprise platform for people who want to engage the crowd via the web to “submit, discuss, refine and rank ideas or other contributions” in order figure out “the most-likely-to-succeed solutions”. A one-stop shop for businesses that want to feel the love of the crowd.
Brainstorming / feedback = kluster
“Everyone deserves a voice. The question is—how loud? Find out now by creating your own kluster—a new breed of group decision-making tool that helps you bubble-up new ideas, identify the best ones, and make better decisions.”
Perfect for brainstorming ideas from trusted people, kluster allows you to harness and manage your hand-picked crowd. More a tool than a crowd itself, kluster supports group decision-making by capturing weighted feedback from participants. I reckon that’s pretty useful within a company itself, or perhaps it can be used by your most valuable user evangelists to help you finesse your business. From $27 a month.
Advertising = Poptent
“Poptent is the best place for independent and freelance videographers to build their portfolios, connect with companies and brands for commercial work.”
TV advertising is 99.9% creative rubbish, so why not start crowdsourcing your ads? They’ll surely be no worse than those prepared by the average Big Media Agency, and a hell of a lot cheaper (there is a significant fee for using Poptent, and another for licensing ideas, but it’s still peanuts compared with the vast sums spent on the usual rubbish). The likes of Harley Davidson and even Proctor & Gamble are using Poptent, so there might be something in this. Zoopa and OpenAd.net are doing similar things.
Product redesign – redesignme
“The first platform where communities and companies collaborate on new / revamped products and services.”
This innovative website hooks up companies with creative thinkers to develop new product / service concepts. RedesignMe’s Design Critique section actively seeks out badly-designed products, which the community can rate. If the manufacturer is receptive, users are then invited to complete design challenges.
Product design and manufacturing = Ponoko
“Make, sell & buy almost anything.”
What’s interesting about Ponoko is that it allows shoppers and conceptual product designers to bring their ideas to life, however random they may be. You don’t need to possess the talent to design or manufacture the product, since Ponoko’s crowd of designers will do it for you. Better still, you can simply take a picture of a sketch, upload it, and then wait for designers to tell you how much it would cost to have made for real. You can do this for yourself, for bespoke / crazy gifts, or to sell to others. Ponoko rocks.
Software & usability testing – uTest
There are plenty of reasons why you don’t want to ditch your preferred usability agency, since offline user testing is absolutely essential to businesses of all sizes. But if you want to conduct online testing then uTest’s community of “18,000 QA professionals from 150 countries” might be the place to start. Web, mobile, gaming and desktop apps can be tested, and the service also supports agile developers.
Data cleansing & entry / content creation = Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
“Mechanical Turk is a marketplace for work. We give businesses and developers access to an on-demand, scalable workforce. Workers select from thousands of tasks and work whenever it’s convenient.”
There are plenty of occasions where the human brain works better than the fastest computer. Tasks that are better performed by humans can be outsourced to Turk. There are currently around 50,000 ‘Human Intelligence Tasks’ (HITs) available for its freelance workforce, including such gems as writing a review of a San Francisco street, or making a video about your coffee stories. Fees per task paid out range from a couple of cents to $30 (Amazon takes 10% commission). There are thought to be at least 100,000 Turkers from around the world.
Images = Flickr Creative Commons
Why bother paying ridiculous sums of money on pictures when there is an alternative as good as Flickr. It’s not perfect for everything (celebs, footballers, etc) but there are millions of high quality images that can be used, with appropriate credits. We use these pictures all the time on our blog.
So that’s it… but before you stagedive into the crowd there are a few cautionary tales out there, which you might want to familiarise yourself with.
I’d love to hear about your experiences if you’re actively crowdsourcing… please leave a comment below.
[Twitter users: if you liked this article please retweet it here. You can follow me here.]
Q&A: Dominic Sparkes on best practice for child protection online
Jan 23rd
Can you tell me about Tempero’s work on the issue of child safety online?
Since its inception in 2003, Tempero has put the protection of children and young people using community and social media tools at the very heart of its business.
We not only work to protect children online through stringent moderation policies and procedures, but we also work to educate young people in keeping safe and empower them to protect themselves.
Tempero has been an active contributor and member of the Home Office task force group, which looked at creating a moderation good practice guidance. We’re also a member of the IWF and are currently collaborating with UKCCIS.
What are the major issues involved with ensuring child safety online?
Initially, understanding the law and how the law applies to your community, reviewing moderation options and assessing which tools are available and how to use them are critical. It’s important to create stringent reporting processes – both internally and externally. All this needs to be done with creating engaging spaces in mind at the same time.
How big an issue is it?
With the explosion in user-generated content (UGC) and social media tools emerging as ways for children to make new friends, catch up with old friends and participate in interactive gaming – the problem of safety for children and young people has become more and more prevalent.
In 2000 the Government set up the Internet Task Force Group, looking at child safety online and has more recently set up the UK Council for Child Internet Safety – recognising the importance for law enforcement, children’s charities and industry to work together to provide better safeguards to protect children online.
Social Media isn’t going away and the volume of use from children in particular will only grow. Unfortunately the volumes of issues is likely to grow also.
Do you think the government is dealing effectively with the issue of child safety online? Is there adequate legislation?
For such a difficult issue, yes, and the UK is leading the way in Europe. There’s always more that can be done though and for that we all have to take responsibility.
The Government has initially been trying to develop recommendations and allocate responsibility, but over time they may have to implement further legislation as the industry grows.
Not every company can afford to moderate so there needs to be more in place in terms of education and corporate responsibility, safety tools, and clear explanation of best practice.
What restrictions/guidelines are placed on marketers attempting to target children online? Do these work in practice?
Best practice has been recommended for everyone operating in this space: community owners, educators and marketers. There is great variation in how this best practice is being implemented though and in general we believe that’s due to lack of awareness and education within the industry.
What are the best forms of moderation for online communities with young audiences?
It’s important for companies to do a comprehensive risk assessment before starting a community aimed at children and young people. Following this assessment, decisions regarding safety and moderation services need to be made.
In practical terms, pre-moderation, ideally through a combination of human moderation and advanced technical tools (which enable more advanced tracking of long term behaviours and patterns) is the way forward.
What are the biggest problems for brands and websites which target children online?
In terms of regulation, striking a balance between protection and overly stringent restrictions. Data Protection is also a major issue and although this is one area where legislation is very clear, many brands and communities aren’t even aware that technically they are capturing and holding data. Age verification adds to the challenges with no one solution yet being ideal.
Other issues include how to run communities safely, within budget, are technically scalable, fully protected whilst still empowering children to have fun and gain from social media.
Do operators of websites focusing on children have an good enough understanding of the issues and legislation surrounding child safety online?
No, the government needs wider reach for good practice guidance and legislation. Many companies don’t know what they should be doing or how to get the right information and help.
Which websites are dealing with these issues effectively? Do you have examples of best practice in this area?
Many of our clients have fantastic best practice procedures which we have worked with them to develop. CBBC, for example, is a market leader in this area.
What advice would you give to people setting up an online community for children?
Design your child protection strategy before you start, this includes doing a comprehensive risk assessment. We’ve seen many companies over the years adding in safety measures and tools after they have started, at great cost and stress.
Google cozies up to agencies in AgencyLand
Jan 23rd
AgencyLand is designed to be an educational tool and gives agency staff access to resources that will help in navigating Google’s offerings. There are case studies, videos, webinars, a variety of ad tools and training facilities. Agency management can monitor how their employees are using AgencyLand and in the future, Google plans to integrate its certification programs.
According to AdAge.com, agencies participating in AgencyLand include (or will shortly include) holdings of Ogilvy, Carat, DDB, Digitas and Razorfish amongst others. Each shop involved gets its own co-branded version of the service.
So is AgencyLand a sign that Google’s approach to working with agencies has changed? Sort of. Obviously, Google knows that agencies need to be using its offerings because their clients demand it and as AdAge.com points out, there’s a marketing component to AgencyLand. But by investing in providing tools that will help agencies with a difficult task (training), Google is acting like a partner.
Interestingly, Microsoft is working on a similar program called Digital Academy. Unlike AgencyLand, Digital Academy will make greater use of in-person meetings and “the three-screen approach (web, TV and mobile)“. Obviously, Microsoft’s position in the online advertising market is much different than Google’s but it will still be interesting to see which approach is better received by agency folk.
Photo credit: daveparker via Flickr.
