When discussing your project with your life-science website developers, the question that’s (probably) burning on your mind is all about the website deadline: “Soooo. How soon can we launch?” It’s to be expected! After all, this is your company–your baby that you’ve spent precious time and effort on–and you want to have a gorgeous home for it on the Internet ASAP.
Here’s a simple formula that’ll help answer your question:
Time it takes for us to complete our job
+
Time it takes for you to complete your job
=
Time it takes to launch.
Here are a few tips that can help you speed up the development process and meet your website deadline.
1. Website Deadline Tip #1: Hold yourself accountable for your part.
Often, a life science company will procrastinate. Chalk that–everyone procrastinates at one point or another. The thing is, there’s a ton of stuff to be done. You have to:
-write copy
-schedule product photoshoots
-make content edits
-deep-dive design reviews
-and more.
Don’t delay the stuff-doing. That’s the best way to push back your launch date by weeks or even MONTHS. It’s also one of the best ways to lose money: a study done by the Global Banking and Finance Review reports that over in Britain, £76 billion is lost per year due to procrastination.
Plus, it’s frustrating for everyone: We’ve developed the site, staged it, made it look divine, and then that dreaded e-mail arrives saying, “Hey, guys…we’re gonna need a few more weeks to get all that…stuff…done.” Because of the delay, we all miss the website deadline.
Essentially: Do the stuff. Don’t be late.
If we can work concurrently, we can minimize the risk of delay together. Or even better: if you start your work before we start ours, we might even be able to shave a week or two off your projected launch date.
2. Website Deadline Tip #2: Get those key decision makers on board as early as possible.
Key decision makers are the people with the veto power: the ones holding those red stamps of approval. We want to know who these people are when we start a project. To get the plane in the air, the big bosses–the captain and his first mate–have to be on board. Same concept applies here. Who are your key decision makers? Are they on board?
A surefire way to miss your website deadline is when we get everything approved only to be told that everything is actually not approved because Professor X and Chief Executive Bill never signed off on the content and design and the development and… you get it. Then when they do check everything they overturn decisions and send everything back for revisions. Then we send it back after changes have been made only to find that Director Betty also forgot to check in.
It makes for headaches all around. That’s why it’s important to keep your head honchos on board and keep them informed–all of them.
3. Website Deadline Tip #3: Stay cool. Don’t freak out.
Entire teams and subteams of people are working on your project–from designers to project managers to PR firms to scientists to photographers. Do your best to keep things sensible. For goodness sake, do not e-mail 50 times a day asking, “HAVE WE MADE ANY PROGRESS?!”.
Don’t overwhelm your team members. Think about how you feel when you get nagged for the six-thousandth time about the dirty dishes. Then think about your employees’ feelings when they’re nagged the six-millionth time about the project. Don’t be THAT boss.
Stay organized. Hundreds of e-mails will be sent during the development of a new website. If you’re interested in losing all your important information and forgetting crucial details, relying on e-mail is the way to do it! (Seriously. E-mails are almost as bad as fax machines when it comes to project management). Cheat off of Orrbitt instead: we use Trello, Google Docs, and Google Sheets to keep all the key info in one place.
When you think about it, meeting a life science website deadline on schedule isn’t that hard–as long as everyone does their part and stays organized. The more streamlined your process is, the faster the train will start rumbling along.