Digital projects make demands on resources: Planning beyond the day job
There’s an all-too-common assumption at the start of digital projects of “We’ll just fit it in around our day jobs.”
That’s understandable — membership organisations often work with lean teams and tight budgets. But a CRM or website transformation is not a background task. It will take time, energy, and attention from everyone across the organisation — for months, not weeks.
In short, if you don’t plan for it, the project will take longer, it will cost more, or it will quietly stall and fail.
Here’s what needs to be considered.
1. Who’s actually going to do the work?
Every digital project will need:
- Someone to lead it (a project manager)
- Someone to own it (usually a senior member of staff, a sponsor)
- People able to contribute to it (heads of department, subject experts, administrators)
This isn’t just sitting in a few meetings. It means reviewing supplier outputs, making decisions, attending demos, testing systems, and supporting colleagues. If nobody has allocated time for this, it all ends up happening with additional out-of-hours time, or not at all.
2. Internal? External? A mix of both?
It is possible You may have someone internally who is capable of managing the project, but are they going to be available? Do they have enough experience? Will their day job suffer?
You don’t need to build a digital team from scratch, but be honest with yourself about what’s actually possible internally. Many organisations bring in temporary external support — a consultant, project manager, business or data analyst — to avoid stretching their staff too thin.
If this is done well, this can support skills transfer and build and reinforce internal capability.
3. Your team will be involved — whether you plan for it or not
Lots of departments like membership, events, finance, and marketing will all need to contribute during the discovery, build, and testing phases. Even those not fully involved in the project will be affected by it.
These questions need to be addressed:
- Will staff have the time to attend workshops?
- Who will provide the data?
- Who will test new processes?
Staff involvement needs to be planned — it should never be last-minute or ad hoc.
4. Don’t Forget the Post-Launch Phase
The busiest time isn’t always the build — it’s often the run-up to launch. Training, user testing, data migration, and content preparation can be very intensive. And once the new platform goes live, support needs will definitely not disappear overnight.
Resourcing for the whole lifecycle needs to be planned for, not just day one.
A final thought
Underestimating the resources needed is one of the most common causes of project drift. But with the right care and planning — and a realistic view of internal capacity — it is manageable.
A digital project doesn’t just need to be a good idea. It needs people capable of delivering it.
Ben Sturt is Managing Director of Chrysalis Digital, and has worked closely with Membership organisations for over 20 years, spanning many sub-verticals within this field, leading and supporting on digital transformations for many membership organisations.
With this wealth of experience he launched Chrysalis Digital in 2015, drawing upon the deep understanding and unique challenges within membership organisations. Ben creates and leads digital strategy transformations enabling membership organisations to achieve successful digital outcomes.
Ben will be leading the deepdive session "Building Your Capacity for Succesful Digital Projects" at the Associations UK Congress on 8 December.
