PixelMEDIA

So you find out that your web development, marketing, content, product management and/or IT teams don’t have any real process for launching live and your team might look really bad. Ah, the “go live” checklist. This management tool helps earn a lot of cred’ for our customers, and should ideally begin a month or so before you plan to publish your new site live.
Managing internal corporate teams can be a struggle to make the Go Live process smooth. This leads me to the first item on the list and the biggest culprit to errors and gripes.


Timeline – No surprises
Document the time and date of the new launch in writing as far in advance as possible. Make it at least a few days before you really need it to allow time for fixes with minimal damage. A few weeks is much better if you can swing it especially for sites that have deeper functionality that may need to be released in steps. When someone tries to crash the timeline and force you to publish what you’ve got before its ready, show anyone on the food chain who will listen the steps and resources needed to launch a new site live (located on your handy checklist). This could also be a simple list for content creation & web edits, to complete timeline for new site and application launch. We draft and help manage custom plans for our customer teams, but the element of surprise is something we have little visibility into.

Workflow, Q/A, test and production environments
Defines the tactical chain of content creation, approvals, responsibilities and even how files get transferred live for the world to see every last typo. Typically includes a content creation and delivery schedule that hopefully synchs-up with your website project plan. Content may be king but it rarely shows up on time.
You don’t have a test server? Do you mean you just see your revisions on the live site right or wrong? If any hardware or software is needed to support the new site, then your list should have these as mini projects for IT or your hosting provider to manage.
Software? For a website? Yes. Even small, static brochure-ware sites may need simple file upload utilities, an updated database to store information or CRM integration for capturing and managing leads.

DNS - Domain name System
I send many clients to the Wikipedia definition of this one. Once there is an understanding, the DNS topic opens up all sorts of questions. Online publication strategies ranging from what should be a subdomain vs. a subdirectory to the list of mail servers that accept email for your new domain name.

Search marketing
Holy crap! Keyword strategy needs QA too? Oh yes! Several search marketing channels weigh-in here.
Link strategies, pay for placement URL updates, tracking codes, website submittals, a skillion redirects and beefy, tactical details are worth documenting before you lose PageRank or have your 404 error page be your #1 page view next month. Note to self: things like mapping and re-directing all of your old page URLs to your new page URLs can take time. By the way, did you write content for a friendly 404 page to include a brief sitemap or do you plan to scare off prospective customers with a scary, Page Not Found error message?
These are items that typically nail customers in the 11th hour. If you choose to skip it and do it at a fictional time called later, then be prepared for some ugly feedback.

Timeline
Did I mention this already? Don’t underestimate the roll-out time it can take to formalize a checklist if you work in a large enterprise. I witnessed one web steering committee invest at least six meetings that I was invited to and shitloads of email over approximately two or three months just assigning and updating roles and responsibilities to this ever-growing checklist.
I have also seen this checklist used as a weapon in meetings where only my contact has a copy (that we drafted for him). He just kept asking questions from the list; the rest of the suits just looked really inexperienced and had no choice but to let him lead the effort. He told me that he managed the checklist opposed to his internal web project timeline or our vendor project timeline, because it was easier and it all fit on two pages including everyone’s names, deliverables, status notes, delivery dates and phone numbers. He kept it in a folder tucked under his blotter like a secret and the site was a big success for him.
Seriously, this simple checklist can help you organize your initiative and maybe you’ll get to tell folks way above your pay grade what to do and when.

NOTE: A majority of this rant was focused on the common holes in the new site publication scenarios and assumes that usability best practices are being observed for the most part in the design and development process.

Tags: checklist, DNS, due dilligence, going live, Search, SEM, timeline, workflow

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Client Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.