Web Team Success in the Campus Environment

Jenny Johnson Wolf and Lee Staton, Indiana University Southeast

Define Success

• Customer-centered process.
• User-centered sites.
• Branding-orientation.
• Keeping sites “fresh.”
• Team seen as established experts.
• Adaptable, innovative, and collaborative.
• On-time deliverables.
• Meet expectations.
• Helpful resource vs. controlling.
• Improved site traffic.

How do we accomplish success? Teams and processes.

Team: It Takes A Village

• Designer
• Programmer
• Account Manager
• Copywriter/Editor
• Researcher
• Application Developer
• Usability Expert
• Information Architect
• Accessibility

Build Your Team Based on Strengths

Recommended reading: Marcus Buckingham.

Do your employees get to do what they love every day?

Use Their Strengths

• Know your team.
• Know what can they do better than anyone.
• WOO (winning others over).
• Be willing to hire staff, then train them on the job.

Ensure Satisfaction

• Keep your programmers engaged — let them stretch.
• Keep your creatives happy.
• Plan engaging meetings, lunches, and special functions.

Work Environment

• Collaborative workspace: Interior decoration colors and designs.
• Creative tools and virtual spaces.

Traps to Avoid

• Being in the same space doesn’t mean communication will happen.
• Encourage asking for help — make sure that questions move up the ladder.

Establish Team Members As Experts

• Attend department meetings.
• E-mail clients proactively.
• Take the lead on projects.

Professional Development

• Online training
• Books
• Software
• Conferences
• HR sessions
• Customer-service training sessions
  • “Give ’em the Pickle” training: Extra level of service.
  • “Fish” training: Seattle Fish market that turns work into fun.

Process

What Does Your Customer Look Like?

• Harried.
• Often not very tech savvy.
• May never have looked at own site.
• May like spinning, flashing stuff.
• Feels pressure within own department, among peers.
• Misinformed on what Web is and isn’t.
• Doesn’t know about accessibility.
• Afraid they will be left out of process.
• Afraid there is something they won’t know.

Always focus on the goal: Web team success.

What Does Bad Team Collaboration Look Like?

• “We know best” parental attitude.
• Fake collaboration: Seeking input and not using it.
• Don’t show clients the mockups until too late.
• Leaves out key stakeholders.
• Ignores relational issues.
• Uses “one-size-fits-all” generic approach.
• Leaving customer angry or frustrated.
• Leaving a site customer who will not maintain site.

All aboard: We do want them to come along on the train.

Intelligent facilitation: Invest in a relationship with the client before it’s necessary for any project.

Initial Client Meeting

• Meet the players.
• Explain the process.
• Focus on the stakeholders and relationships.
• Discuss the look and feel: “What should the site say about you?”
• Review the current site.
• Guide expectations.
• Admit to timeline limits.
• Ask what other professional and personal sites they are using.
• Introduce accessibility: Turn off the monitor and have the client use the site with a screen reader.
• Be honest about the pipeline.

Traps to Avoid

• Meeting only with Deans or department heads.
• Meeting only with staff delegates.

Getting Started

• Present and explain information architecture to client as bulleted outline.
• Do usability testing, if possible.
• Must content be provided by client?
• Have a copy editor rewrite and edit pre-existing content.
• Present design mockup or functional prototype.
• Don’t get attached to results … it’s not art, it’s commerce.
• Conduct usability testing on final prototype.

Client Approval and Pre-launch Testing

• Go through pre-launch checklist.
• A Web site is born!

Post-launch Cleanup and CMS Training

• There are no perfect launches.
• Your customer can (and should) help identify any problems.
• If they won’t maintain it, it’s D.O.A.

Main Points

• The human side is as important as the technical side.
• For the team to succeed, you must have someone who can take the lead on the human side.
• Momentum: Repeated success will carry you forward.
• Both team and process are moving targets — iterate.

Signs of Success

• Happy clients.
• Bragging clients.
• People keep asking you for your help.
• Student workers don’t want to leave.
• Work begets more work.
• You present at HighEdWeb!