Project Plan

Initial meeting

When you have established your project team, carry out a brainstorming meeting to make sure you have captured all the requirements for your site. Here are some points you may want to consider:

• Who the stakeholders are and whether they are all properly represented in your project team.
• Who are your target audience/users? Remember, the site is not for you; it is for the site users.
• What processes, systems, resources you are going to need?
• What is the success criteria for the site?
• Are there any projects with similar goals to yours and could they assist in the creation of your website?

Project plan

Select the best options from your initial meeting and then write and cost them into a project plan (Project Initiation Document), including:

• Overall approach to work tasks
• Team organisation
• Management and reporting lines for the project
• Resources and people
• Overall project goals
• What the 'milestones' in the project will be
• Business case (cost, benefits, returns)

Approval

Finally, put your Project Initiation Document forward for approval to the appropriate persons. This may include an early draft of a detailed time-based plan (a Gantt chart, for example).