Ultimate Guide to Website Project Risks And How to Mitigate Them
Tips from delivering dozens of websites for big brand clients.
I have for you today:
10 comprehensive tips and mitation strategies.
A free checklist (carefully crafted in Notion) for you to download and make your own.
An AI prompt (with instructions) to help you identify the risks specific to your project.
Let’s go…
Picture this:
You poured blood, sweat, and a load of back and forth into planning your website project.
Every detail was laid out in a scope of work, time plan and estimate - all signed off by your client.
Fast-forward 7 weeks, and your perfect plan is starting to fall apart.
You’re wondering what’s going wrong, and why your developers appear a little drained in your morning stand-ups.
Multiple changes and new requirements are starting to have an impact and if you don’t get a handle on them now, then tough talks with your client about extending the delivery date might need to happen.
Know your project risks
Now, even the most seasoned project pros can't predict every curveball, but you can plan for the most common risks that can derail website projects.
Today I’m going to help you become a risk mitigation pro, so you can plan ahead, run a nice smooth project and keep your teammates happy.
1. Become a scope creep slayer 🦸♀️
An obvious one but ‘scope creep’ is a common pain of PMs everywhere. It comes from clients AND from unknowing account managers and creatives too.
It starts off all innocent – a tiny extra feature here, a minor design tweak there. But before you know it, your project becomes a mountain of ‘amends’.
To fend off the beast, you need to:
Define the scope with precision from day one - a detailed SOW is a must.
Get stakeholders (client and agency) to sign off what's in and what's out.
Create an ironclad change control process and talk your client through it prior to project kick off.
Review scope regularly with your client, highlighting any issues in your status report and project risk log and how the scope could be impacted.
2. Unleash your inner estimation wizard 🧙♂️
Estimating is hard.
And underestimating can have epic consequences.
You don't want to find yourself halfway through the project, timesheets tapped out, with miles left to go.
The cure?
Bulletproof estimation techniques:
Break the project into phases for more precise planning (use a Work Breakdown Structure).
Work with individual team members (writers, designers, devs etc) to get estimated time, but know their experience in doing such estimates.
Use three-point estimation to cover all your bases.
For Agile projects, use planning poker and make estimating a team sport.
Study past estimates and project reconciliations - find out why the numbers ended up like they did.
Know what your client paid previously.
Pad your estimates with (at least) a 5-10% contingency buffer.
Set expectations that an estimate is what it says on the tin - an estimate.
Top tip
If you can break up a project into different phases, get an estimate signed off and do the work before moving on to the next phase, then that is the gold standard for waterfall method website projects.
For example:
Discovery phase - Estimate > workshop > requirements > sign off.
Content and design phase - Estimate > complete the work > document and sign off dev scope.
Development phase - Estimate > complete the development > QA > UAT > Live.
3. Master the art of client comms 🤠
An unresponsive client or a mysterious stakeholder showing up can derail your project timeline faster than you can say "approval."
To keep your clients engaged:
Find out what their sign-off process is up-front.
Set clear expectations for turnaround times from the get-go - walk them through your scope of work and time plan.
Follow up regularly in a manner agreed with your client - what comms method do they prefer and how often?.
Know when to escalate any issues to your own manager - so they can help manage things with senior clients if required.
4. Communicate with your team like a pro 🎤
An agency team that's out of sync is one that’s unproductive and inefficient.
Miscommunications, dropped balls, duplication of effort, awkward catch up’s...
Nip them in the bud by:
Implementing regular stand-ups or check-ins (daily if you need to).
Using a centralised collaboration software such as JIRA or Asana (no more email back and forth).
Follow up agreed internal meetings with notes and actions in writing.
And most importantly:
Talk to your team! Walk around your agency. Find out what’s on their mind and help solve any issues they have.
Issues might not even be about your project, so you can step in and be a valuable sounding board - building a positive relationship with your colleague at the same time.
5. Wrangle last-minute content changes like a champ 🤼♂️
Suddenly, you're on the home stretch, then the client decides to add another round of amends. Cue the collective facepalm from your creatives.
To minimise the impact:
Know up front if there needs to be any form of client compliance sign-off such as legal or regulatory teams.
Get consolidated feedback from your client at every stage (before proceeding to the next) - scope, content, design, dev etc.
Get consolidated (agency) feedback too.
Involve the client in reviews of early drafts - show them work in progress to make sure you're headed in the right direction.
6. Tackle your client's IT team head-on 🛡️
When the client's IT team is responsible for hosting your website, it can open up a whole other bunch of dependencies.
And, in my experience, this can be one of the single biggest risks in any website project.
Compatibility issues, security concerns, and conflicting priorities can cause delays.
To mitigate these risks:
Get them involved early - from day 1.
Ask for any technology and process documents you need to follow.
Identify and address potential technical constraints such as needing to build the site in a specific coding language or content management system (CMS).
Clearly define roles, responsibilities, and expectations between your agency and them - co-create a RACI and have it signed off.
Establish open lines of communication and regular check-ins - like with your day-to-day client.
Work with them to develop a comprehensive testing and deployment plan that works for both parties.
7. Eliminate single points of failure in your dev team 💪
When critical knowledge is locked away in the mind of one developer, you're one holiday away from delays.
To avoid this single point of failure:
Foster a culture of documentation and knowledge sharing.
Encourage your team to document their code, processes, and decisions in a shared wiki or knowledge base (Confluence is a great option).
Make documentation a regular part of your developers workflow.
Implement pair programming if you have the resource.
Conduct regular code reviews.
Have developers review each other's code before merging to catch potential issues
Use them as an opportunity for developers to learn from each other and understand different parts of the project.
Plan for smooth handovers.
When someone does go on holiday, ensure a comprehensive handover process is in place.
Use the outgoing developer’s documented work to train their handover, and be available to facilitate.
8. Test, test, and test again 🔁
Solid QA is more important nowadays than it ever was. The proliferation of data means that agencies need to up their game to safeguard their clients, their business and reputations.
As a project manager, make sure you understand all the different types of testing. Namely, cross-browser testing, unit testing, regression testing, functional testing, vulnerability/code scanning, user acceptance testing, automation testing and penetration testing.
Seems like a lot, doesn’t it.
Go crazy on Google and look them up! Better still, use my Digital Project Manager GPT.
Skimping on testing is not advisable, and definitely don’t assume your developers are going to ship a perfect project:
Work with your Technical Lead and Head of QA to create the right testing approach for your project.
Document that into a solid test plan.
Involve QA at scope stage - especially in writing robust requirements and / or user stories that bake testing into the acceptance criteria.
Include ample time for QA at every stage of the project. Updating requirements and stories as the design of the website becomes more clear.
As bugs are identified, document and prioritise them in your go-to project management tool.
9. Prototype everything 🕵️♀️
Perfect work can be a huge time sucker if presented at the wrong time. If you focus on just creating the final version of everything, you won’t know if you’re headed in the right direction, potentially leading to re-work, wasted hours and overtime for everyone.
What exactly do I mean?
Show your colleagues and clients early versions (work in progress) of:
Project timelines – Confirm dependencies and priorities to avoid building a detailed plan that ends up needing a complete overhaul.
User stories - Create and agree large stories that cover the main website features before breaking them down into smaller task-based stories. Avoid including detailed acceptance criteria until they have been signed off.
Brand guidelines - if you’re working with a proper brand (client) then they should have a set of brand guidelines (if not then up-sell them), so get those up front and give them to your creatives to review and feedback.
Copy outlines – Present content as a prioritised (and hierarchical) list of what will be included on a page before writing complete drafts.
Design concepts – Site maps, wireframes, sketches and low-fidelity mock-ups. Get input on the layout and functionality before investing time in perfect designs.
Translations - if your website is going multilingual, then know the languages up front and do some homework to understand and cultural considerations. And by the way, don’t ever translate content using an automated tool (or even Google Translate). Use a reputation translation partner - message me if you want recommendations.
10. Embrace change (management) 🌀
Changes will happen in any website project. And that is largely down to three things:
Content and design are organic - they evolve as the project progresses. Agency people have ideas and they want to create the best work possible. That’s a good thing.
Most people need to see work in the flesh before being able to truly comment on whether it’s what they wanted. A feature description, copy drafts, design visuals, a prototype - they all bring to life that scope of work weeks ago.
Hidden stakeholders on the client-side suddenly appear and kybosh all your hard work. Again, super-important to discuss review and sign off up front.
So if the scope does change a bit (or even a large mount) and you can’t soak up the time in your contingency plan:
Communicate the impact of changes to all stakeholders, early and often.
Put into action that formal change request process (no exceptions!).
Evaluate each change through the lens of value vs. effort (is it worth it?).
Batch change requests for maximum efficiency.
Discuss anything that could go-live after the main launch so as not to impact promised deadlines.
Bring in your next project on the money 💰
Website projects are no cakewalk. Especially as they vary from simple landing pages to 200+ page CMS builds, which are definitely not fun if they start going wayward.
With these 10 risk-busting strategies in your toolkit, you'll be able to plan ahead and be ready to tackle common curveballs, save yourself countless headaches, and be the one who everyone wants to buy a drink at the post-launch party. 🕺💃
Finally…
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