Large projects which span more than a couple of weeks and require contribution from multiple team members require structure, a designated plan and good communication to unite the needs and expectations of all stakeholders involved. Without that, projects may suffer from scope creep  or worse, they never have a clear destination in mind to begin with, resulting in tied-up assets and lost revenue, and no effective outcome for the business.

At MQ, “efficiency realized” is our motto and we have developed a system which helps our team work with yours to effectively complete projects while providing the necessary clarity, unity, and direction. We also offer explicit explanations of what your key challenges are, and what the plan to go forward is. MQ will help you understand how the proposed solution can resolve your team’s given set of unique challenges. In this project management process, we benchmark nine client-dependent checkpoints as we transition through the five phases which are: 

  • requirements gathering, 
  • design & blueprinting, 
  • development, 
  • quality assurance testing, and finally 
  • production deployment. 

Clients who require or desire ongoing support after a project is complete can opt-in to a maintenance agreement at their discretion and based on their budget.

 

5 Phases of Project Success


You can expect every project will include a proposed timeline which meets your vital date targets, a total cost estimate, proposed designs and strategies, caveats and considerations, deliverables required by both parties, and a final signoff or approval at key stages.

Project Management Value Checklist


Bottom line: we offer skills and expertise to help you, your business, and your team achieve the wins you need. This project management process has helped us successfully roll out over 500 projects for both large and small organizations over the past 10 years. We’ve refined it with each project to meet every team’s specific needs—be that expediency, budgetary constraints, or a more hands-off process. We’re not here to just build you a website, our goal is to design and deploy digital solutions that improve and help your sales, marketing, administrative, and management teams to be more successful. We’re looking forward to working with you and your team.

 

Working with MQ – Planning for Success

Example Project Plan for Corporate Website

Introductions, onboarding & project brief

Requirements Gathering

CLIENT: Discovery Document sent to client for exploratory Q&As

Process Checkpoint

High-Level Estimation based on time, effort, cost, and options based on limitations these variables may place on the project.

Requirements Gathering

Deep dive one-on-one, requirements gathering, data targets & business goals

Requirements Gathering

Statement of Work (SOW), Work Plan & Team Assignments

Process Checkpoint

Project Kickoff
CLIENT Obligation #1 - Design/Branding Assets, Logos, Colors, Images, Content, etc

Design

Blueprint Creation (Based on design budget; often includes but not limited to: UX/UI designs, site architecture, content strategy, content plan or client-assigned obligations, branding, marketing, technicalities like hosting, technical tools, third party integrations, and also post-launch maintenance options)

Design

Blueprint Review & Finalization:
1. Internal Review with CEO & Technology Expert (Nikhil Sonpal)
• Round of edits based on feedback
2. External with Client
• Round of edits based on feedback
3. Final Blueprint review with client for signoff
• Additional revisions can be made but will extend beyond the original allocated blueprint budget (and will be billed accordingly).

Design

Go/No-Go - After the blueprint is delivered as a final work product; either MQ continues with the project execution based on findings, or client has the option to take the blueprint and associated findings and either bring the project to their in-house team or work with another consultant.
• Note: Often the blueprinting process uncovers different approaches, outcome limitations, unexpected hurdles, and requires the project vision to adjust or pivot from the original plan. This is both the value and importance the blueprint process prior to entering the development phase

Process Checkpoint

CLIENT Obligations Due (if applicable: content, images, account accesses); examples may include:
• Host and/or Name Servers (AWS, GoDaddy, Host Gator, etc)
• Third Party Access (Apple Accounts, Google Store, etc)
• Google Analytics account or admin access
• Email or CRM access (MailChimp, SalesForce, HubSpot, etc)
• Code repositories (Git, etc)
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use/Service
• List of social media account URLs

Process Checkpoint

Dev Kickoff

Development

Server Setup
• Hosting Management
• Staging Environment
• Build Processes

Development

Website Scaffolding, Tool Installation & Project Setup - Example for WordPress:
• WordPress Install
• Theme Install – Ex. Elementor, JupiterX + Child Theming
• Plugin Installs - Base plugins: Yoast SEO, Smush Image Compressor, TinyMCE, WP MailLogging, Wordfence, etc
• Google Analytics
• Form Control Tools

Development

Website Design Elements: Styles, Colors, Fonts, General Object Theming
Universal CSS & Style Guide Creation

Development

Dev PM: Task List Created for Project Management; logs:
• Site pages & dev status
• Design vs. Development pages
• Internal notes between MQ team
• External notes/updates for client

Development

CLIENT Access given to in-progress staging site, Project Management log & check status for outstanding deliverables

Process Checkpoint

Website Content Insertion & Navigation: Building out the bones of the site and adding bottom-line content and images so that deficiencies and missing items become apparent.
• Often in the blueprint process, we design 'one of each' but not every single page. As we move into dev, quick insertion of page content and linking helps us see any 'gotchas' where content and navigation have gaps

Development

Template Layouts Completed - example:
- Article formatting
- Category list
- News landing
- Custom layouts based on designs
- Galleries
- Forms
- etc

 

CLIENT Status update sent & final call for outstanding deliverables

Development

Design refinements: Site-wide, per-page scrub adjusting layouts and design elements

Development

Mobile refinements: Site-wide, per-page mobile responsive checks

Development

CLIENT Status update sent and drive toward setting cut-over date

Process Checkpoint

SEO Audit & Refinements
• On-Page SEO Review - Yoast (Meta Data, on-page formatting) & Testing Facebook opengraph debugger
• Website Grader Check & Refinements
• SEM Rush SEO Grade Check & Refinements
• Google Analytics & Search Console Connection

Development

Security Enablement
• SSL Cutover for HTTPS
• Wordfence activation (to screen for DoS attacks)
• Sucuri (to scan for file changes)

 

Quality Assurance (QA) Testing
• See 'Bugs' Tab in PM Doc

QA

Refinements:
- Client review edits
- Per-page or site-wide

Development

CLIENT Final site review with client, sign-off, cutover date set

Process Checkpoint

Cutover

Go Live

CLIENT Handover document (Passwords, account access, any additional instructions, training [if applicable], etc)
Final discussions about maintenance options and rolling service agreements for site updates, content creation and marketing/branding assistance

Process Checkpoint

CLIENT Payment due

Process Checkpoint

Have a website or application you’d like to get started on? Contact the team at Mobility Quotient and let’s talk about your goals and desired project outcomes.

You may also like…
How our blueprinting process can set your project up for success
Full list of services we offer
Information on full-cycle software development

 

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