Programming – Jeff Does IT

This is a story of a small project that went nowhere and ended by slinking off with a whimper to the land of wasted time.

I was working for a small internet marketing start-up, performing the role of website developer and search engine optimization (SEO) specialist. Our standard package involved tweaks to a client’s existing website meta-data, a series of marketing videos linked to the website, implementation of a mailing list system for subscriber capture and newsletter broadcast, and creating a linked blog site for the client to draw Google search-engine interest through regular addition of new content. The typical project was un-complicated and small in scope.

We were contacted by a local business to increase their website traffic with the goal of increasing their business volume. The client asked if some modifications could be made to the site to “punch it up a bit”. To close the deal, I agreed to some aesthetic improvements in addition to performing the typical SEO work. As part of the project, the client was given a training course in the use of their blog, and the value of this blog was explained in depth. It was shortly after this point that the project began to degrade.

As part of the website aesthetics sub-project I met with the client to discuss the particulars. I proposed a list of modifications (background color, a simple cascading style sheet (CSS) to get away from obsolete table formatting, a change to the images in the existing slideshow) and noted the client preferences for layout and color scheme in a text document on my laptop. At meeting end, I assured the client that the changes would be done in a week and that I would schedule a meeting at that time to close the project. That scenario played out, but not as I expected.

At the next meeting I was presented with a new list of vague changes by a client that was very unsatisfied. Their complaints ran the gamut of the site “just not looking right” to disappointment in the number of “hits” the site received. Taken aback, I once again explained what our marking processes did, the time that it took for the SEO modifications to “mature”, and the large part that their contribution to their blog would make (I had been checking their blog since installation and they had not made one entry). Being one who does not like to say “No”, I reviewed their list with them, culled some things that were too impractical to work on, and promised that I would work on the rest. This had not been a good day, and I resolved to redouble my efforts to satisfy this client.

Sadly, this was not to be. On subsequent meetings and visits for video shoots I was met with more verbal change requests and comments of disappointment with the site. Clearly, this project had stopped being about SEO and had become a full-blown website design and development project, without any budget increase, defined schedule, or discernable goal. If you are shaking your head then you’ve probably been there.

Businesses exist to generate cash flow and make a profit. Any activity conducted by a business must have some tie to this rule, even those that are tangential (i.e.: the company picnic, which is part of team building and morale boosting to spur employee retention and production). In the project world, where large expenditures of time, effort, and money are consumed, it would be wise to know that the expenditures would have a return on investment (ROI). There are some simple guiding categories that can be used to determine if an ROI is in the offing:

Cost reduction – The elimination of hardware, software or “wetware” (people) expenses that can be attributed to the proposed project.
Cost avoidance – The avoided cost of additional resources for a specific job function because of an increased capacity to perform that job function in the future.
Increased revenue – The increased dollar amount of sales attributed to the project.
Retained revenue – The dollar amount of sales that will be lost if the project is not pursued. (Monteforte, 2005)

The returns may not be all about the money. In a closing address to the PMI global congress in North America Dr. Harold Kerzner put it like this: Time and cost used to drive all decisions. Now we’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, are we providing value?’ (Miller, 2009). Kerzner suggests that the issue goes beyond purely monetary consideration to include goodwill or reputation (Miller, 2009). As the old Canon ads used to say, “Image is everything”.

The marketing project my company proposed had a defined business objective that was aligned with the business strategy: Improve the Google search-engine ranking for the client’s website, based on a variety of commonly used search keywords, to place them in the top ten of page-one search results. So, how did that work out? The project was hijacked by the client’s wish to redesign their website, a task that would do very little to help their business. Oddly enough, while pulling the alignment from the business goal made the project futile, it did not stop the project from continuing. I believe the project continues in other hands, probably with the same results.

There were plenty of mistakes made in this fiasco, not least of which was in my neglect in setting the scope of the additional website development (a lesson well learned!). But the largest error was the client’s focus on a task with minimal value to the business. Even admitting that the website is an extension of their “image”, and that a minor update in aesthetics could provide a little intangible ROI, the goal of the project we were selling was an increase in revenue through increased visibility and awareness of their business, something that they agreed to but never followed through on. In retrospect, changing the website was probably a pet project that had been simmering for some time, a sticky trap for an eager sap that became “the job that never ends”.

Learn from my unfortunate experience. When you get a client that wants a “little favor” on top of what you are offering, find out exactly what it is, clarify the scope with them (in writing is best. Just bang out the document right there on your laptop), and make sure they understand what to expect. You may even be able to negotiate the price up. Most of all, have a definite measurement for completion of the work, or you may be caught in an endless loop.

References

Miller, C. (2009, October 15). Harold Kerzner: Project Managers Must Understand Business. Retrieved January 28, 2011, from Voices on Project Management: http://blogs.pmi.org/blog/voices_on_project_management/2009/10/harold-kerzner-project-manager.html

Monteforte, J. (2005, November 15). Five Steps to Business/IT Project Alignment. Retrieved January 29, 2011, from CIO Update: http://www.cioupdate.com/budgets/article.php/3564406/Five-Steps-to-BusinessIT-Project-Alignment.htm