Web Project Template Files: E-Consultancy
Web Project Template Files: E-Consultancy
E-consultancy
1. INTRODUCTION 4
2.6. Testing 21
2.6.1. Test Plan 21
2.6.2. Test Case 21
2.6.3. Defect Log 21
2.6.4. Test Results Log 21
2.6.5. Test Approval Sheet 22
2.6.6. Pre-publication checklist 22
2.9. Compliance 25
2.9.1. Contract for Web services 25
2.9.2. Privacy Policy 28
2.9.3. Service Level Agreement 29
2.9.4. Website User Agreement 29
There are various places on the web which offer the occasional such document, of variable quality.
However, there is nowhere that we know of where you can get all the documents you need. Hence this
pack of template files.
So what’s included?
We’ve spent a lot of time over the last eighteen months talking to our subscribers and discovering the
tools and techniques they find most effective in helping them manage their web projects. This second
release of templates has been informed by their feedback. However we’re still keen to keep adding to
and improving what’s here. Please do contact us (details following) if you have something to
contribute or suggest.
1. Naming conventions – One man’s PID is another man’s project management plan. In
trying to represent different project methodologies inevitably we’ve come across
contradictions and overlaps in what documents are called and their purpose (particularly
project start up documentation). Please bear with us and read the template descriptions
below for guidance.
2. Template overload - If you tried to use all of our templates in your next project you would
probably drown under a mountain of paperwork, so it’s up to you to pick and choose the
documents that are most useful to you. Significantly, in this release we include an “Agile
Toolkit” which you’ll find useful if you’re working in a more streamlined and iterative way
than traditional project management.
In the following sections we explain more about the files and how they are typically used. However,
a big CAVEAT still applies – these template files are simply to help frame and guide your
thinking, they are not the ‘answer’ or a complete DIY ‘kit’. What is right for you will depend on your
particular requirements and project.
Undoubtedly some of our document templates are much better suited to larger projects or
programmes of iterations. Use your judgement to determine which are best suited to you and your
organisations’ style of working.
Contact Details
If you have any comments or suggestions for inclusion into future releases please contact E-
consultancy (chris AT e-consultancy.com or +44 (0)20 7681 4052).
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The Product or System description is drafted at the beginning of a project to outline its purpose and
objectives. The purpose of this document is to initiate further exploration and to provide a
constant point of reference to why the project was initiated in the first place. Particularly critical in
the web environment where the shape and delivery of the project are constantly in flux. At this
stage there is not necessarily a detailed scope, requirements or business case.
All subsequent features and requirements should pertain to this original description, otherwise they
are surplus to delivering the goals of the project.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
Once high level requirements have been gathered and a business case agreed the Scope Statement is
sometimes used as a “baseline” agreement of exactly what is and isn’t included within the remit of
the project.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
In traditional PMBOK project management the SOW (Statement of Work) is the document that
authorises the project to commence. However, in common practice within web projects at least, the
SOW is typically the agency’s response to the client brief, ensuring that project scope, objectives and
deliverables are commonly understood and agreed, as well as providing an initial estimate of the
degree of work involved in delivering the project.
A number of assumptions are made in order to be able to deliver this high level budget estimate and
milestone plan, and it is critical that these assumptions are documented in the SOW.
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Once approved by the client the SOW acts as the catalyst for the agency to begin defining the project
requirements and solution in more detail.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
Usability techniques are very important for successful user-centric design. Pretty much everyone in
the web design world now agrees that you have to build a web site which suits its users’ needs and
requirements rather than ‘pushing’ something at them that you would like them to see. But how do
you go about finding out what your users needs are? The files below should help you determine how
best to incorporate usability into the early stages of requirements gathering, site specification and
design:
What is usability testing? – Explains when, why and how to conduct usability testing.
Scenario modelling – once you understand who your users are and what their needs are
you can begin to build “scenarios” which describe a person's interaction with a system. The
file included tells you how.
Card Sorting - Card Sorting is a technique for exploring how people group items, so that
you can develop structures that maximize the probability of users being able to find what
they want. This is particularly useful for developing the Site Map and navigation. The file
included tells you more about how to go about card sorting.
Walkthrough – A walkthrough is a cost-effective technique for testing a user interface,
where you get feedback from several people at once on an early paper version of your
design. They can be a helpful alternative to formal usability testing where budgets are tight,
although obviously a walkthrough has limitations.
Contextual Enquiry - a technique for examining and understanding users and their
workplace, tasks, issues and preferences. CE can be used to produce user needs analyses
and task analyses. You might use this technique on an existing site, a competitive site, or a
prototype. There is also a sample report included.
We’d like to thank Gerry Gaffney, Founder and Director of Information & Design,
http://www.infodesign.com.au, for providing these files. Information & Design is a small usability
consultancy based in Melbourne, Australia, providing usability, user experience design and
information architecture services. Find out more about Gerry here:
http://www.infodesign.com.au/aboutus/biography.asp
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According to our research “Web Project Management: The practices behind successful
web projects – May 2007” managing requirements is the number one challenge facing web
project managers. Not least because (according to 88% of our respondents) requirements are often
set knowing that they are likely to change during the course of the project.
However, this does not mean that gathering requirements is a pointless exercise. Quite the
opposite. Companies that deal with this issue with the most success ensure that they involve the
right people up front in gathering requirements, and have an effective means of prioritising and
managing their subsequent delivery. In Agile methods, this takes place via stories or features
(templates for which are included in our Agile Toolkit) which are reprioritised at the end of each
iteration. In more traditional projects, requirements are gathered using a Business Requirements
Document, to which all relevant stakeholder parties contribute and sign up.
One of the major contributory factors to poor requirements management is that the requirements
themselves are sub-standard. Nine times out of ten this is because everyone is so excited about the
prospect of a new web project that they want to include every pet feature or idea they’ve been
storing up, causing your list of requirements to become bloated and unwieldy.
1. Prioritise ruthlessly – if a requirement comes near the bottom of the list is it really a
requirement at all?
2. Ask yourself, does each requirement contribute to a specific project objective?
3. Are you articulating a requirement or have you started defining the solution – getting into
solution definition at this stage can stifle thinking and cut off more efficient or imaginative
ways to achieving your objectives
4. Have you involved the people who really know what the system needs to deliver? Have you
thought about asking the customer what they want?
5. Don’t be ambiguous, like SMART objectives, each requirement should be expressed in
language (or pictures) that can only have one meaning, and each requirement must be
capable of being tested to see if it has been delivered successfully.
Note: the BRD may also form a Schedule to the Contract (see Section 2.9.1)
In their excellent book “Web ReDesign 2.0 – Workflow that works” Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler
address the issue of evaluating when to repurpose and when to retire content from a site. These
days there are so few organisations building their first ever website from scratch, having the ability
to evaluate content objectively is critical.
Although a time consuming task, undertaking this process prior to planning and estimating for
content provision (but after requirements gathering) could save you considerable time and creative
resource later in the project by providing a clear view of what elements of the existing content can
be reutilised or adapted to fit the objectives of the current project.
The only way to do it is to look at each key page and decide which components are necessary to
achieving the site’s goals and which are surplus. This simple template provides a framework for
documenting your findings.
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A WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) also called a Product Breakdown Structure (PBS) under the
Prince2 methodology, is a way of organising all the products / deliverables within a project into
their component parts, as part of the process of estimating work effort and assigning resource.
The products or outputs of the project are organised in a hierarchical way with their component
parts aligned underneath them. Going through this process will often serve to highlight sub-tasks
or deliverables that may otherwise have been inadvertently overlooked!
Before documenting your WBS or PBS a clever way to map it out is using the Project Manager’s best
friend, post-it notes, to organise each item of work in its appropriate grouping.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
If you’re not initiated in the ways of MS Project use this template to document your project team
members and their availability during the lifetime of your project.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
The RAM (Responsibility Assignment Matrix) maps each of your deliverables against the required
resource, including documenting who is responsible from a review/approver perspective as well as
team members that are involved in delivery. The purpose of doing this is to aid resource planning
and estimation of work effort.
It’s not compulsory but it can be helpful to list each deliverable according to the unique reference
within your WBS. The deliverables listed in this template are for illustration purposes only, but give
you an idea of the depth of detail you may wish to go to.
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Team members are listed across the top of the table and their degree of involvement or
responsibility for each deliverable can be selected from a drop down menu (to enable this function
please don’t overwrite or delete the definitions worksheet that sits behind the main sheet).
An estimate for any project is always going to be based on a number of assumptions. It takes
experience to be able to estimate accurately, and even then there will be events throughout the
lifetime of a project which will threaten your attempts to stay within budget.
This template is designed to provide assistance in this sometimes daunting task. Following on from
your WBS, use this spreadsheet to list out each task and input three estimates of the man hours
involved ranging from optimistic, to most likely, to pessimistic. The spreadsheet contains a
formula which will output a weighted average, biased towards your most likely scenario.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
Risks threaten your web projects from the very outset. For instance, every assumption you make in
the planning phase carries the inherent risk that it is wrong, and has the potential to impact design,
delivery, budget and schedule. This is why risks should be brainstormed at the very outset of the
project, and a risk register maintained and updated throughout its lifetime.
This template enables you to log and manage your risks throughout the life of the project. Use the
drop down menu to score your risks according to the probability of their occurrence and their
potential impact to derive a risk score (1 low risk to 25 highest risk), and mitigate these risks
accordingly.
Use the drop down menu to show whether you have completed a risk response (mitigation) plan for
each risk.
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The Risk Response plan captures the outputs of risk analysis, documenting the potential actions
that could be taken, as well as the chosen course of action.
1. Avoidance – alter your course of action so that the risk is no longer there
2. Transference – transfer the risk to someone else e.g. incorporate penalty clauses into
contracts or take out insurance against the occurrence of the risk
3. Mitigation – prevent the risk occurring or reduce its impact
4. Acceptance – don’t worry about it because it’s of little impact or probability, or because it
simply can’t be mitigated.
It’s worth spending the time up front to evaluate the probability, impact and potential responses to
each risk as it will save time and minimise impact if a potential problem becomes a reality. You’ve
already agreed what you’re going to do about it.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
Before you agree to any contract of work it is critical to be able to understand and demonstrate that
the scope or requirements of a project can be met within the time and budget available. This is
achieved in part through the project plan.
The project plan is also integral to the contract – it is one of the schedules to the sample contract
included in this pack (see previous section 3.1)
The Project Plan template is provided in 4 different *formats which illustrate the main phases and
interdependent tasks for a medium to large project. Using the template you can estimate the time
required to complete each phase, refining and adapting your plan as the work is done. The template
will also help you understand the interdependencies between tasks both within and across each
phase of delivery. For smaller, less complex projects it would be better to strip out much of the
detailed tasks and estimate time in terms of more high-level task groups.
*The MS Project one is most complete as it shows all the interdependencies etc. However, if you
don’t have MSProject then the PDF will show graphically how the tasks link together and the
HTML and Excel files list out the actual tasks.
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The project is for a large web project: 7 months long, budget of circa £500,000, core team
of 5 + others, circa 20 page templates, with 500+ pages, using a medium-sized Content
Management System (CMS) and/or e-commerce engine + basic personalisation
Resourcing and budget details are not given - the template focuses on tasks, dependencies
and indicative timings
The project contains over 200 tasks concentrating on the Pre-Production and Production
phases. The Evaluation phase is not detailed and the Maintenance phase detailed is only a
basic example
The macros in the file are harmless as far as we can be sure - disable them when opening
the file if you wish
The project plan is a manifesto for how the project is going to be delivered rather than giving any
more detail about what is going to be delivered.
Because the project plan acts as a key document in communicating with the team, client and
stakeholders about what they can expect from the project process it is critical that this document is
both received, read and approved by key parties.
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Some site content will be created new, some content will be re-purposed for the web and other
content may be syndicated or taken directly into the site as a content feed from a third party
supplier.
The content plan details who will be providing the content described in the functional specification.
It makes clear who owns the content and any sign off processes behind the supply of content, what
format they should provide the content in, who they should provide the content to, how often they
will update the content and to what deadlines.
The Content Plan template is provided in Excel and should be used to audit the content and then
produce a critical path of what content you need by which date in order to launch the site on time
and then ensure content is kept up to date. Late delivery of content will almost certainly have an
associated cost/impact on launch/release dates. It is important to keep all content providers aware
of their deadlines and responsibilities and the content plan will allow the project manager to track
this. The page IDs in the content plan correlate to the site map.
Note: the Content Plan should form a Schedule to the Contract (see Section 3.1). As late, or unfit,
content is the main cause for web project delays, agencies are well advised to have their clients, or
partners, commit to delivering the agreed content according to such a plan and including this in the
contract. Not only does this help protect the agency against content-related delays but there’s
nothing like a contract to focus the mind of an unruly content provider… If they do not want to
commit to delivering the content as set out in a contract then you must wonder why not? Should the
content even be there at all if no-one is prepared to commit to delivering and maintaining it
properly?
A site map shows the main sections and sub-sections of a web site. Therefore, it effectively
determines the navigational hierarchy and labelling of the site as well.
There are a number or ways of presenting a site map. The Site Map template attempts to balance
the architectural integrity required of a structural representation of a site with the need for visual
clarity.
The 3 most common tools for representing site maps are: Powerpoint, Microsoft Org Charts, Visio.
The sample included uses Powerpoint as most people have this application and can use it easily to
manipulate and distribute (using the copy and paste functions and connectors). There are two
simple style options to suit your needs.
Note: the Site Map (with storyboards) is also an important Schedule to the Contract (see Section
2.9.1)
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The functional specification is a description of what the content is from a user's perspective. You
might call it the 'user experience document'. It is not about why the content works or why it is
there, but what exactly does it do? If you where a user coming to the site, how would you describe
what the web page does? By producing this document you are creating both a blueprint for client
sign-off and reference for the design & construction phase.
The Functional Specification template is a MS Word file and contains an explanation at the start of
each section. It would be suitable for medium to large projects containing complex applications.
For example, the process flow diagrams and action response tables prevent the omission of critical
functionality when briefing technical teams. However, rapid prototyping may be a more efficient
development technique and for less complex projects a simplified version of the functional
specification may be more suitable.
The functional specification (which defines content and functionality as born of user requirements)
and the site map (which defines the navigational architecture) are the two key documents that form
the basis for briefing your technical and creative resources. Most importantly, the functional
specification should be detailed enough to allow the members of your team to accurately quote the
amount of time they will need to implement what is specified. The better the functional
specification, the more accurate the budget.
Note: the Functional Specification is an important Schedule to the Contract (see Section 2.9.1)
3.3.4. Wireframes
Wireframes are simple page design representations that contain the content and functional
elements of a page (or template) without any graphical elements present. Their purpose is
threefold:
First they are useful in presentations as an outline of the design approach.
Second they are useful to the development team, in particular the designers at this stage, in
defining and refining the elements that need to go on the page.
Third they are useful to the team in showing the navigational architecture and information
flow; that is, how the pages are going to work together to provide the user's interactive
experience.
The wireframes template is provided in PowerPoint format and is simple to manipulate and
distribute. There is a 'basic' web page template that illustrates a standard layout for global and
secondary navigation that could be used as a good starting point for typical content or e-commerce
driven site. A useful feature of the template is its ability to highlight the nature of any content
appearing on the page (e.g. static, dynamic) to the development team.
To help illustrate how wireframes relate to final page designs (complete with content, graphical
elements and images) there are two example wireframes from the original E-consultancy functional
specification (NB the site has since changed) presented with the corresponding pages from the
resulting live E-consultancy site. Wireframes can be used not just for pages that the site visitor sees,
but also for any other interface – the content management admin screens, for example, as shown in
the template provided.
Note: the wireframes / storyboards can form a Schedule to the Contract (see Section 2.9.1).
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For project managers, and certainly the programming team, it is important to try and get the
technical specification right first time. Whereas many of the other elements can be changed even at
a late stage if absolutely necessary, or are subject to interpretation, the technical specification
contains only hard facts. A mistake in the technical specification is quite unequivocally a mistake
and can cause havoc in a project.
The Technical Specification Content List is a MS Word document that contains a list of the content
that you would expect to be detailed within a technical specification. As such the document can be
used as a checklist to ensure that the important parts of the technical build are correctly specified
during development.
Note: the Technical Specification may also form a Schedule to the Contract (see Section 2.9.1)
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Agile is a software and project management approach which tends towards the following
characteristics:
The upshot of this is that the documentation requirements for an Agile project are much lighter
than for traditionally run projects. These templates represent key documents to run an agile
iteration. The only additional documentation would typically be:
This short note could not possibly do justice to an explanation of agile processes but if you are
interested in attending one of our training sessions please email [email protected], or see our
website’s training channel for more detail. Alternatively for further reading try Agile Project
Management, Jim Highsmith, Addison Wesley, 2002
For all these agile templates we’d like to thank Denis Howlett of Indigo Blue. IndigoBlue
www.indigoblue.co.uk deliver E-consultancy’s web project management training courses. Their
programme and project management services enable organisations to significantly improve their
ability to deliver IT projects: reducing cost, raising quality and ultimately meeting and exceeding
their customers' needs and expectations. Indigo Blue assist organisations in the introduction of
Agile management processes, or in the improvement of their existing processes through the
pragmatic application of Agile techniques
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A typical agile project schedule will comprise of a series of project planning activities culminating in
a programme of frequent iterations. Each iteration delivers the highest priority features or stories
(requirements) which will be planned, tested and built in their entirety within the iteration so that
the output is working code that has been approved as fit for purpose by the business.
PlanningGame
Planning Game DevelopFeature
Develop Feature Regression,
Regression, Endof
End ofIteration
Iteration Report&&Release
Report Release
Acceptanceand
Acceptance and Review
Review
Closedown
Closedown
Working
Working
Features
Features
The content of the next iteration is only ever completely determined at the end of the last iteration,
as this allows for features to be reprioritised according to the changing priorities of the business or
in response to other activities within the project. Consequently, agile scheduling is based around
high level milestones rather than detailed implementation dates for specific features.
Feature cards are the Agile equivalent of articulating detailed requirements. A feature (sometimes
called a story) describes in plain English what the system has to do. It is written from the user
perspective so for instance, a feature might be “The customer must be able to book a trip to any
European city including travel and accommodation”.
Working on the “test first” principle, each feature card must also state how the feature will be tested
for completion. Once a feature is written it is incorporated in the Features Tracking Matrix where it
is prioritised and allocated to an iteration.
The features list, lists everything in priority order. There does not need to be a complete project’s
worth of features in order for the project to start; it can start with whatever is at the top of the list.
Detailed planning is only ever required for the next increment.
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The features list should be continuously updated to ensure that priority features are being delivered
first, enabling the business to gain maximum benefit as quickly as possible from the
implementation of the project.
The burndown chart is a visual representation of what progress is being made on each feature
within the iteration to enable the project manager to re-evaluate work estimates.
Use the data sheet to input the estimated man hours for each feature within the iteration and to log
how many hours have been spent on that feature on each day of the iteration.
At the end of each iteration an end of iteration review is conducted. As well as highlighting the
achievements and lessons learned from the last iteration, to enable future improvements, one of its
main functions is to act as a sense check on how well the work effort is being estimated within each
iteration e.g. does the iteration contain too many or too few features? Is the overall timing plan
realistic when the real velocity of the project team is known?
Armed with this knowledge the project manager is able to plan the next iteration more effectively.
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This template is for a high level status report, ideal for communicating overall progress of the
project to senior management.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
This template provides a detailed daily log for the project team containing:
Risks
Assumptions
Decisions
Issues
Opportunities
This spreadsheet contains a number of harmless macros which serve as lists for drop down menus
for categorising and managing the contents of the spreadsheet.
Even small projects have a higher probability of success if their implementation is preceded by the
issue of a formal change request and impact assessment. As well as detailing the nature and reason
for the change this template also serves as a useful communication tool between client and agency,
documenting the budgetary and timing implications of making changes to the scope of the project.
The agency can then request formal approval of this prior to implementing a change, ensuring there
is an audit trail when it comes to the budget reconciliation at the end of the project.
We’d like to thank Rob Purdie of Important Projects http://importantprojects.co.uk for providing
this template. Important Projects is a values-led project management consulting and training
practice focused on helping social change organisations manage their most important programs,
projects and ongoing operations more successfully and effectively.
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The purpose of the change log is to allow the Project Manager or change team to monitor the
number of change requests incoming, and to manage the resources allocated to carrying out impact
assessments according to the priority status of the change.
It also serves as a complete document of the number of change requests that occur within the
project, as well as whether it has been decided to implement them. This is a useful piece of
information for the Post Implementation Review, highlighting the efficiency (or otherwise) of the
team in defining requirements up front.
Once again, this spreadsheet contains some harmless macros to assist with filling in the form.
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3.6. Testing
There are various forms of testing that you can carry out. The most common for web sites being:
User Acceptance Testing (UAT). This is about testing to see if the delivered system (the
web site) does indeed meet the specification.
Functional and Application testing. This include a number of things e.g. testing for
compliance with stated browsers, checking for broken links, checking file sizes and page
weights, testing site response times and speeds, testing applications to check they really
work.
Load Testing. This is about testing what levels of usage the site can tolerate before
performance begins to be impaired.
Content Proofing. Checking the content for accuracy, relevance and so on. Also includes
checking to see ALT tags have been added, page titling is consistent, relevant metatags are
present etc.
Usability Testing. See next Section 3.12
Security Testing. Security experts can test your site to see how secure it is against
malicious attacks e.g. ‘penetration attack’ testing.
The test plan sets out at the beginning of the project what the overall approach to testing will be.
Amongst other things it specifies:
By documenting this detail early on it sets out clear quality standards for the team to adhere to as
well as allowing sufficient time for the appropriate test environment to be put in place.
A test case (as illustrated in the template) should be written for each use case or requirement, to
ensure that project deliverables are fit for purpose.
A template for logging all defects as an outcome of functional testing in order that they can be
managed and reported efficiently.
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A detailed log for all tests, their expected outcome vs. the actual outcome. There are more complex
macros in this spreadsheet which provide reporting on test success/failure rates, and the severity of
defects.
A formal sign off sheet for documenting the outcomes of testing and approval to proceed to the next
phase of the project.
We’d like to thank Gerry Gaffney, Founder and Director of Information & Design,
http://www.infodesign.com.au, for providing this file. Information & Design is a small usability
consultancy based in Melbourne, Australia, providing usability, user experience design and
information architecture services. Find out more about Gerry here:
http://www.infodesign.com.au/aboutus/biography.asp
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This is a simple 1 page document that you can use to get final sign off on your web project. This is
very important to draw a line under your responsibilities for a particular project. For agencies this
sign off is often the point at which any outstanding fees can be invoiced and any subsequent work
can be charged for separately.
Lessons learned is about providing valuable feedback to the project team and the wider organisation
in order to improve processes for future projects. To achieve maximum value from these sessions
they should (ideally) be impartially facilitated, and should focus on behaviours and tactics that were
successful or problematic rather than focussing on people.
Try not to allow the session to become biased towards either positive or negative comments, and
ensure that feedback comes from all the key project areas not just from the usual suspects.
Make sure the outputs are properly documented in a positive way which translates the lessons into
future best practices, and ensure it is distributed appropriately e.g. via a post-implementation
report so it can be fed into the planning of the next project.
A 1 page spreadsheet documenting the outputs of the lessons learned review process.
This document should be used as part of the formal handover of the project to the business. It
summarises the success of the project against its original objectives, articulates the key lessons for
future projects and starts the process of quantifying the benefits being realised by the business
through the implementation of the project.
Creating a set of agreed web site style guidelines makes site updates run hugely more efficiently.
Endless discussions and debates over often subjective design details such as type faces and colors
can waste large amounts of time. It is not that these details are not important but if they can be
codified it avoids having the same debates over and over again. Team members and content
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contributors can work much more efficiently if they clearly understand the design and brand
parameters they must work to.
This becomes particularly important as a web site grows and there are increasing numbers of
distributed authors and parties involved in adding to, and updating, the web site (internet or
intranet). For global sites it is important to define the style guidelines at a central, global level in
order to maintain quality and consistency across all sites. These guidelines should, however, allow
enough room for appropriate localisation.
www.monash.edu.au/staff/web
www.medschool.ucsf.edu/webresources/web_style_guide
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3.8. Maintenance
3.8.1. Maintenance Release Schedule
File location \ name:
8. Maintenance\Maintenance schedule.xls
The maintenance schedule is a simple tool which allows the business to keep tabs of future planned
changes to the site, in order that releases can be scheduled and prioritised effectively to meet both
IT or business needs.
Clearly it is important to measure how well your web site is doing in order to understand the returns
you are getting on your web investment and to improve future performance.
The two Excel spreadsheets included give you templates to use to measure the effectiveness both of
e-mail campaigns and your web site.
The e-mail campaign calculator spreadsheet contains various worksheets to help you measure
campaign return on investment and newsletter efficiency – more detailed guidelines are given at the
bottom of each worksheet.
The web metrics spreadsheet (which also contains a more detailed guide to use) provides you with a
template to report on visitor, traffic, conversion and stickiness metrics.
We’d like to thank Dr Dave Chaffey, BSc, PhD, MCIM, who is the Director of Marketing Insights
Limited, http://www.marketing-insights.co.uk, for providing us with these two template files.
Dave is a recognised expert in Internet Marketing, and provides training and consulting services as
well as being author of numerous books on the topic. You can find our more about Dave here:
http://www.marketing-insights.co.uk/aboutus.htm
Before you look at the sample contract provided, please read the following helpful guide…
Legal Contract FAQ – A primer for Clients on the essential aspects of legal contracts
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A: In fact – you will end up in a contract with your Developer whether you intend to or not.
Contracts do not need to be in writing, nor do they need to be signed and so merely agreeing that
the Developer will do some work for you will bring into existence a contract.
Q: How does the contract for developing and supporting a web site work?
A: The contract is modular; on the first page you write in the names of the parties and some of the
headline commercial terms and refer on that page to a number of schedules which will describe the
project. You should always include Schedule A which contains the main legal terms and conditions.
That first page, the Cover Page, is also the page which you sign. Although you don’t need to sign a
contract to make it enforceable – you can save yourself a lot of trouble later if you can point to the
version of the contract which the parties agreed to with their signatures.
Q: Invariably our projects change over time as the various parts of our business provide their
input.
A: The basic principle is that you can always make a change to any part of the contract and
schedules if it is with the agreement of all the parties. This contract provides that the change should
be in writing (clause 3.1). Where you anticipate that there needs to be a change in the scope of the
contract, clauses 3.1 to 3.3 provide a mechanism for you to ask the Developer to price the change
before it goes ahead.
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Q: The budget is quite tight for this project and we are already at the limit of it with the
improvements that the Developer is recommending.
A: One of the best controls for keeping projects on track is controlling the payment of money.
There are a large number of different ways to approach this but one technique which is firmly in
your favour is to ensure that some payments are not made until certain milestones are reached.
These milestones, and the appropriate payments should be set out in Schedule E - Project Plan.
When the Developer finishes a section of the project which is subject to a milestone then the
contract provides (see clause 2) that that section of the project should be subject to acceptance
testing. As currently drafted the Developer does the testing, provides all the results to you and you
inform them of any errors. They then need to go back, fix the errors and retest. If they fail this
process three times then that is considered to be a breach of the contract. Again there are a number
of variants to this process you can consider, in particular, you may wish to do some of the testing
yourself or at least provide or agree certain for test data to be used.
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£10,000. The contract provides that the limit is set to twice the Fees. A Developer may resist this
but it is a good starting point for negotiation. As a rule of thumb, the limit should never be set to be
below the Fees. As an alternative, you could let the liability be limited to a set amount. Other
aspects to this part of the deal are the types of loss which are recoverable. Currently we have been
fair to the Developer by permitting the exclusion of consequential loss or damage (see clause 11.1).
You may think that this is too generous. Lastly, we have, as is usual, sought to ensure that the limits
of liability do not limit the protection we receive and give in relation to third party intellectual
property infringement (see clause 11.2 linked to clause 10.1).
[Disclaimer: This agreement is provided by E-consultancy and Pillsbury Winthrop as an example only.
There may be circumstances applicable to your situation which would make this agreement inapplicable or
inaccurate. The information given in this agreement is not legal or commercial advice nor a substitute for
such advice and must not be relied on as such. If you require legal advice you must always consult a
suitably qualified lawyer.]
For more details on this privacy policy please refer to the earlier “Legal Contract FAQ –
A primer for Clients on the essential aspects of legal contracts” which is on Page 5 in
section 3.1 Contract for Web Services.
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In the same way that the project specification documents are designed to make it very clear to all
parties concerned what is being delivered, and by whom and for how much, the SLA defines the
level of service the client can expect on an ongoing basis, and what the costs involved are likely to
be.
The Service Level Agreement Content List is a MS Word document that contains a list of the content
that you would expect to be detailed within such an agreement. As such the document can be used
as a checklist to ensure that the important parts of any maintenance agreement are correctly
specified post development.
NB: Refer also to the Contract covered in Section 3.1 which gives an example of the actual legal
language that would go into a contract covering maintenance and support services.
For more details on this User Agreement please refer to the earlier “Legal Contract FAQ – A primer
for Clients on the essential aspects of legal contracts” which is on Page 5 in section 3.1 Contract for
Web Services. Below is the relevant section:
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