Top tips: Smooth digital projects - Part 1

I'm Jessica Dearlove, Senior Project Manager at Pixl8 and I work with clients from scoping stage right through to final delivery. Even though each project is different, the same challenges arise in different forms. However, there are simple things that you can do to mitigate these issues and make the most of working with your agency.  

Whether your digital project is small-scale or involves a comprehensive replacement of your existing systems, there are things that your team can do before a project starts to set things up for success.

Here are my first five tips. Watch the video below for more information and keep an eye on the Pixl8 website for more tips on running projects soon.

Have your platform users at the forefront of your decision making process

Write up profiles for all your different member types, give them personas and imagine what each of them wants from the platform and how they are using it. Try and keep this in the forefront of your mind at every stage of the project. Consider the information hierarchy that each user expects to see. What's most important to each user? We can tailor information on our site using conditional content to serve different users different messages, which make the site more relevant and increase engagement.

Try to adopt the most simple technical solutions

This is something to bear in mind at the scoping stage; when you start to work through your detailed requirements with your consultant, simplicity is a key principle of agile project management. Heavily customised platforms might seem like they will deliver convenience, but having lots of customisations makes it more difficult and expensive to keep your site up to date with the latest versions of the technology. Try not to have fixed ideas about how things should work or look - just brief what you want the outcome to be and be open minded about how you get there. Have faith that the consultants and developers will know the best way to approach a requirement.