With the increasing number of online customers these days, businesses have decided to target the digital world more efficiently. When they plan to target online customers, the very first thing they need is a business website for which they connect to website developers.
Web development, like any other project, needs effective planning, coordination, and appropriate control of resources to achieve the desired goals. A couple of potential resources are required for web development project management. Out of them, a project manager plays a crucial role.
The responsibilities of a web development project manager not only include managing the whole project but also cover managing the team of people working on that project. A project manager must be capable of dealing with the six important aspects of a web development project, as listed below.
- Scope
- Schedule
- Finances
- Risk
- Quality
- Resources
Apart from that, as a project manager, you should be able to use different project management tools available in today’s market.
What Precisely Is Web Development Project Management?
Once the project requirements are clear, breaking them down into different tasks and then assigning them to the relevant members of the team is called website development project management.
The major goal behind this project management is to optimize the development process and complete everything on time. This is something that attracts your clients the most and increases the repeat customer rate.
The complete web development also needs input from other teams, like content creators, designers, SEO analysts, digital marketers, influencers, etc. So, it is sort of a collaborative effort from multiple teams working on achieving one goal.
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What Does a Web Development Project Manager Do?
Well, a project manager is responsible for overseeing the complete development process, from inspection to deploying websites online. The top responsibilities of these professionals include the following.
- Creating a concept for website design to determine its visual appearance and communicating with the IT team to convert it into reality.
- Building attention-grabbing user interfaces.
- Performing effective SEO strategies on web designs.
- Introducing meaningful plugins, publishing videos, and uploading images to make sites attractive for all visitors.
- Testing and troubleshooting end products and monitoring the online deployment of sites.
- Ensuring the projects are developed within the budget and on time.
- Keeping a close eye on the performance of sites once they are published.
- Preparing progress reports for higher management.
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The Top 4 Factors of Web Development Project Management
Managing complex-level web development projects and completing them within the given time frame is a tough nut to crack. The designers, developers, and QA engineers can lose focus and get demotivated at any stage of the project. To overcome this challenge, you need an effective and efficient web development project management plan. The important factors you should consider in this regard are as follows.
1. Building a Good Team
How successful a project will be; largely depends on the credibility and expertise of the team working on that task. Therefore, you must focus on building a strong team with experienced and dedicated members. Always make sure that they have the right skills and knowledge to manage web development projects.
Web designers, front end developers, back end developers, and quality assurance engineers contribute to forming a web development team. Usually, it is suggested to determine the expected outcomes before finalizing the members of the team. It makes sure that the team’s skills are aligned with the end goals.
2. Taking Top Leaders On Board
Technical skills, without any doubt, are a must for a web development project manager, but having strong leadership abilities is equally important.
The top skills a project manager should have include; problem-solving, effective planning, good communication, and strong business management. Apart from that, a project manager must also be a tech-savvy individual with sound knowledge of testing websites and other software applications to ensure they fulfill the given requirements.
3. Determining the Platform for Project Management
Hundreds of web development project management systems are available. You need to shortlist the one that suits your needs the most. With a perfect tool, you can run your project smoothly, as it comes with rich features required to deal with potential problems, manage resources, and plan web development projects.
If you don’t have the right project management utility for web development, you may struggle to meet the major goals of the project, including scope, quality, and budget.
4. Select the Right Methodology
One methodology can’t be a perfect fit for every web development project, even if you are working in the same company. If you have successfully implemented one methodology on a specific task, it does not mean that it will work well for other projects too. So, it is always better to develop a personalized methodology to manage each web development project. Below is a list of the benefits of adopting a customized web development project management methodology.
- The whole team aligns well with the end goals, and the workflow becomes smooth.
- It enables all team members to deliver consistent outcomes.
- A good methodology empowers a web development project manager, and he or she can explain the project scope and approach to stakeholders.
- Addressing various challenges and troubleshooting problems becomes super easy.
It is very important to understand the parameters required to manage a website development project successfully. Nowadays, many businesses have started consulting with setups that provide project management consulting services. Are you looking for a guide to hiring similar services? If yes, make sure you read the section below.
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The 5 Best Web Development Project Management Methodologies
As stated earlier, if you want to manage website development projects smoothly, you must have a customized methodology to get the job done. A project management methodology defines certain rules to follow when working on a specific project. Below is a list of the five most effective project management methodologies you can use to manage web development projects. Let’s look at how each methodology plays its part.
1. Waterfall
In the Waterfall methodology, a linear sequence is developed to show all tasks required to complete a project. If you plan to use the Waterfall methodology for project management, the sequence will include multiple parameters, including requirements, analysis, design, construction, testing, deployment, and maintenance. Usually, a Gantt chart is drawn to represent this methodology.
2. Agile
The Agile methodology breaks the overall process into multiple sprints or cycles. Since complex tasks are divided into multiple small and simple jobs, the complexity of the overall job gets reduced greatly. All the small tasks are combined to deliver the final version of a website or web application. The Agile methodology focuses on continuous interactions between team members, customer collaboration, the use of web development project management tools, and responding to changes introduced in the development phases.
3. Critical Path
The Critical Path methodology helps project managers identify all critical tasks and schedule them properly. The reason why this approach is known as the “Critical Path” is that the longest path in this methodology determines the timeframe. Identifying the essential tasks of a project, building important paths, and creating project estimates are the crucial components of this methodology.
4. Kanban
Are you still looking for how to manage a web development project effectively? Try using the Kanban approach. The word “Kanban” is derived from the Japanese language, which means billboard or signboard. In this methodology, project managers create columns for different tasks and go ahead when they are completed. It helps you highlight the problems and fix them before the project is destroyed.
5. Scrum
The Scrum project management approach also depends on cycles and sprints for managing web development projects. The one who manages the whole project is called Scrum Master. He or she divides the complete process into small sprints that last for up to two weeks and not longer than that. Every team member is bound to update the manager about what they did yesterday, what they will do today, and if there is anything stopping them from maintaining a seamless workflow.
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How to Manage a Web Development Project? A Step-By-Step Guide
If you break the complete project into smaller tasks, you can manage it more conveniently, maintaining a seamless workflow. Below are a few steps you should keep in mind.
1. Planning
Before starting any project, planning is a must. It is as important as building your team. Don’t forget to grab all the information and details associated with a particular task from your client before you start planning. Doing this allows the web development project manager, developers, designers, and the whole team to determine the end goals carefully.
When planning, it is crucial to decide the timeframe and budget required for complete management. In addition, establishing a methodology for project management is also part of the planning phase. One more important thing you should consider in this phase is the potential risks you may experience. Once a web development team finds the risks, it becomes easy for all members to develop a robust and reliable solution. It ensures the project is delivered on time.
Whatever you decide in the planning stage, you must make your entire team familiar with that to ensure everyone is on the same page. As a result, you will get quick, accurate, and high-quality project solutions.
2. Building
The building phase begins when your web development team becomes familiar with all the project requirements. It is time to start working on the project’s design and features. A project manager must keep an eye on this process to ensure everything is going smoothly. The team should also monitor the progress and confirm whether they are on the right track.
Considering the above factors, it is very important to arrange regular meetups between the stakeholders and the team members to communicate effectively. The top factors included in the building stage are as follows.
- Creating a record of project deadlines, budgets, and progress
- Motivating all the team members
- Avoiding micromanaging
3. Optimizing
As soon as you complete the building phase. The next step is optimizing the end product. It involves improving the performance of websites and web applications with advanced strategies and the latest web development project management tools. In simple words, the end web application is rounded off during the optimization process.
4. Finalizing
Once the building and optimization phases are completed successfully, the next step is to run a website. This is the final stage of the web development project and is pretty complicated. It consists of several tasks. The steps included in the finalizing stage are listed below.
- Initial Testing: The first testing is the responsibility of the website development team. Efficient teams prepare a checklist to determine whether all features are integrated properly. They create separate tasks to test each functionality of web applications.
- Continuous Testing: This type of testing helps the team highlight the bugs in the early development stages. It enables team members to optimize the product and makes the solution cost-effective.
- Training: This stage makes every team member familiar with how to use the developed web application. Before launching a product, it is crucial to train your team and ensure they know how to use it.
- Launching: Once you complete the testing phase, the next thing you should do is launch a product. Marketing the newly launched products and correct timing is also part of this stage.
- Evaluating and Reporting: As soon as you launch a web application, it is a must to monitor its performance regularly and determine if it is a successful launch. In this stage, everyone, from designers to developers and quality assurance engineers to project managers, should equally contribute.
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The 10 Best Web Development Project Management Tools to Use in 2023
Are you looking for reliable tools to manage your web development projects? Don’t know how to select a suitable utility and where to proceed? Don’t be concerned, as we have shortlisted the top 10 project management tools you can use for website development.
- Trello
- Jira
- Wrike
- Asana
- WP Project Manager
- Basecamp
- Panorama
- Podio
- ClickUp
- nTask
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Final Words
Now that you are familiar with how to manage a web development project. A project manager plays a key role during all the phases of the development process. If you have hired a skilled, experienced, and dedicated manager for web development project management, he or she will handle the team efficiently and will always ensure on-time delivery of all projects within the allocated budget. What else can you expect from your manager and the team at the same time?
To understand the major factors you must consider while managing website projects, read the above guide carefully. Do you like reading similar resources? Subscribe to KodersHive and stay tuned for the upcoming stuff. There is a lot more coming up in a day or two.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: What are the most important components of the web development project management plan?
A: Well, there are three important components that you can’t ignore when managing a website development project. They include the project manager, the right methodology for project management, and a tool to manage the complete project. Make sure you have the complete resources before you grab a similar project.
Q: How can I present a web development project plan?
A: You can use either Microsoft Powerpoint or Excel to present a plan. Moreover, hundreds of project management tools are readily accessible in today’s market. You can choose a credible one to achieve your goals.
Q: How long does it take to complete a website development project?
A: There is no fixed time for that. However, if you need a simple website with content published on it, it may take up to a month. But if the project is complicated, it can take a couple of months, depending on its complexity and the features required.
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