Why An Accelerated Timeline is Bad for Your Website Re-Design

The Declaration of Acceleration

We often get requests for "accelerated timelines" when we design and develop credit union websites. More often than not, its less of a request and more of a declaration by the client, "We have an accelerated timeline" they'll say. "We need the site to go live in 2 months". This has happened to us multiple times in recent years, and I am always disappointed when I hear it. Not because it means we'll have to work faster or harder or more diligently to produce the site; we already work to the fullest extent of our ability with as much swiftness as possible with every project we take on, but because it means that it is very possible that the client won't get the best result in the end. We never rush through a project because in our eyes, quality is more important than an accelerated delivery. It is very difficult to attain both.

Why is it disappointing? For several reasons...

1. Clients are pre-conditioned to assume the worst.
   It's not the CU's fault. They are pre-conditioned to assume that we are going to screw them. Until they get to know us and understand our processes, they won't realize that we are on their side and want to meet their goals with them, not make their lives difficult to make ours easier or more profitable.
   
   Sometimes we can break through that barrier during our first conversation, other times it takes longer. In the worst cases in never happens at all. A history of incapable and dictatorial vendors in the CU industry has created this situation and its annoying. The credit union team thinks that if they tell us it has to be done fast, they'll at least get it on time. The fact is that they will get it when it's ready, and that usually ends up depending on their involvement in the project, not on the development timeline.
   
2. What's the rush, really?
   I have only worked with one credit union that didn't already have a website when we began the process of building a new one. Almost every project is a re-design of an existing site, most of which have been on the web for several years or longer. If your current site has served you for so long, is it really worth rushing through the process of building your new one, that will probably be on the web for three to five years, just so you can ditch the old one?
   
   Just because it hasn't been doing its job for so long doesn't mean we should hurry up and build another site that won't end up doing its job because it wasn't thought through properly. A site is not solely successful as its own entity. It requires support, thoughtful planning and detailed attention from day one to be successful.
   
3. A web project doesn't start with us, but it ends with us.
   Every web project begins as a plan that is incubating internally at a credit union. That plan usually ends up taking quite a bit of time to come to fruition, and many times there ends up being a (premature) goal for a go-live date before the vendor is even selected. Often, CU teams drag their feet or are faced with unexpected decisions during their planning phase before vendor selection even begins. By the time they select us as their vendor, there's only a little bit of time left within their internal timeline. Timelines should not be created until all of the variables are known. That means after the CU selects a developer.
4. The accelerated project is not our only project.
   When a client of ours expects an accelerated delivery, we attempt to fit their request in with all of the other work that we have going on at that time. We make every effort to not shift existing timelines, and we never want to push work aside that's already begun for someone else (who may have a more reasonable expectation of what a timeline is), but the fact is that its like trying to fit too many stems in the flower vase. You may have to move one aside to fit this new one in.

If you are planning a website redesign, whether you are considering L9 or any other vendor, be aware that there will be many aspects to the project that you don't even know about yet. Once you involve a good development team, they should foresee any issues, bring them to light, and advise your team as to how to deal with them. After all, the vendor is the expert and that's why you hire them, right? If its not then you hired them for the wrong reasons.

If a CU chooses L9 as their web vendor, they will learn that we bring a lot of "discoveries" to the table every time we begin a project, and those discoveries give us all more to make decisions about, which means more time for planning than you may have expected to be required. There are absolutely going to be things that the CU's team did not think about or foresee. Most of them take time to deal with.

Each development group has their own planning, design, and implementation processes, and when those are inhibited by a declaration of acceleration, the result is not as good as it would have been if everyone took their time and worked through the necessary processes together. Spend time being detailed and listening to your vendor. You won't be redesigning your site every year, or on the contrary... if your timeline is accelerated, maybe you will.

Comments

Jeffry,

That's a very good question. I think the answer is completely dependent on the project and the vendor. In an ideal world, I think a credit union website re-design should have seven to nine months from establishing the relationship to putting the site live. We can usually finish a typical credit union re-design within five months. Anything less than that is rushed in my opinion. That doesn't mean it hasn't worked out before, but I can't think of a credit union project that I feel was a great one that was also "accelerated".

That five month timeline is also completely based on the internal process that we have developed for designing a new credit union website and then integrating it into our website management system. We know how long things usually take and how long it usually takes for the client to get comfortable with the project, finalize their content, etc. The ironic thing is that we've honed our process to the point where we can build this type of a site relatively quickly, yet we still get requests for faster development. I expect that if a credit union went to a vendor who did not specialize in credit union website development that the project would take even longer.

In our case it is also very important for the credit union to take time to get familiar with our website management system. It is a very user friendly system, but it is still new software to every new client we work with. This is one of the things I'm referring to when I say "There are absolutely going to be things that the CU's team did not think about or foresee." We allow ample time for this in a typical timeline, but in a rush situation this process usually suffers, which leaves the client feeling like they can't get everything done before the live date. That is what usually prevents them from going live on their accelerated target date, or going live with a seemingly half-baked presentation. Almost all of the "accelerated" timelines that we've seen in recent years miss their target live date even though our development team had the site functions and design integration complete prior to that date.

Overall, the client is selling themselves short if they don't take extra time to pay attention to detail.

Thanks for the good question. Jason

A credit union's website is arguably its most important touchpoint these days. If your current one isn't doing what it's supposed to, do you think rushing a new one through is going to really be any better?

Jason, how long do you think a website redesign should take, all the way from "Howdy web partner" to turning the lights on? Nine months? A year?