what am i buying? understanding website cost and technology

What Am I Buying? Understanding Website Cost & Technology

Presented To 501 Tech NYC September 21, 2016

@constr_ctive

Designing a New Way Forward

Who is This Guy… And What’s His Angle?

www.constructive.co / @constr_ctive

About Me

Ian Constructive


How Will We Spend Our Time?

• Case Study

• The Challenge of Making Technology Decisions

• The Drivers of Tech Cost and How To Asses Value


Why Does Tech Matter?


The Way Things Were


The Way Things Are


WWW

Brand Ambassador

24/7/365

Community

Events

Intranet

Fundraising

eMarketing

CRM

CRM

Publishing Platform

Reporting

Tools & Resources


Mission Implementation


Getting Started


What if I Get it Wrong?


What if I Get if Right?


Build a Team

Write The RFP

Have to Do This By When?

Got Budget, Or Do I?

Who Are The

Stakeholders?

What Tech?

We CAN do

This!

Get Buy-In

Did I Forget Something?

Who Will Use

This?

Who Can We Partner With?


The Technical Hurdle (What DoYou Know?)


The Technical Hurdle - Do You Know?

Business Requirements

• Plain Language & Solution Independent

• Bridge Knowledge Gaps BetweenThe Parts of Your Ecosystem

• Should Compliment & Extend Your Brand



The Size of The Lift

• How Much Effort is This Really Going to Take?

• Set Realistic Expectations!

• Don’t Underestimate Integration,External & Across Systems



Technology Options & Cost

• It’s an Ever-Changing Landscape

• Know When to Seek Help

• Not Knowing What’s Available That Will Work Can Have Serious Consequences



Your Priorities

• Be Objective in What Would Satisfy Goals

• Your Technical Choices Impact the Future

• Trying to do Much With Too Little Creates Mediocre Results


Advocate, With Knowledge!


Drivers of Cost


Drivers of Cost

Open Source vs

PaidIntegrations Hosting


Open Source vs

Paid• With Evolving Needs, The Software You

Choose May Not Move With You

Drivers of Cost

• It’s Really About Open vs. Proprietary,Subscriptions, Paid Support, & Development

• A Commercial Product Doesn’t AlwaysEquate to Higher Quality or Usability


Integrations • Not All APIs Are Created Equal,This is Especially True With CRMs

• Your Site Can Be Integrated With Too

Drivers of Cost

• What Are You Integrating And How?Not Only Internal But External


Hosting• There Can Be Costs Outside of Your Server:

Networking, Databases, CDN, Failover, …

• Know How “Managed” Managed Is

Drivers of Cost

• It’s Not Like The Old Days,Except When You Need It to Be


The Total Cost of Technology Includes More Than The Financial Cost,

it Includes Time & Human Capital


Assessing Cost & Finding Partners


The Process

Pre-Selection Process

Selection Engagement


Pre-Selection

Give the People What They Want Not What You Think They Want

EmailInternal Survey

External Survey


Survey Questions

• At a top level, what are your goals for this website design?

• Briefly describe your understanding of our organization, it’s mission & why it’s important

• What are key issues you focus on to advance our mission?

• What are your primary areas of expertise and activities?


• Who do your think are our primary audiences? What are their priorities and needs? How should the website ideally help each audience segment satisfy them?

• Who are our top 3-5 peers or competitors in priority order? What do you feel is effective or ineffective about their websites?

• What are the current website’s greatest strengths as they relate the needs of our audience or our organization? What about the design and usability is successful?

• What are the current website’s greatest challenges or failings as they relate to design & usability? How might each negatively impact our audience or organization, & how might they be addressed in the redesigned website?

Survey Questions


• How do you feel about the current site’s content, both as it relates to our programs as well as it relates to our brand? Does the voice effectively engage external audiences? Is there content that should be added or removed? How should the new site’s content differ?

• Beyond usability, visual design, & content, are there any features or functionality you feel would help advance our mission or meet the audience needs? Are there any publishing/back-office issues that you feel need to be addressed to make the website more operationally efficient and supportive?

• Are there any other comments or feedback that you’d like to add?

Survey Questions


Reality Check


Pre-Selection: The Complexity Matrix

Assign Difficulty Levels to Features

Easy Medium Hard Gonzo



What Increases Complexity?

Customization InteractionsFuture

Proofing


Time To Adjust


Selecting A Partner


Evaluating: Questions To Ask

• What CMS platforms & other technologies do you work with?

• Do you outsource any part of execution? If you do, how long have you been working with your partner(s)?

• What’s your approach to interdisciplinary collaboration? How do you prevent siloing?

• Who will be involved? Are your senior leads/directors accessible? (We don’t know if you’ll kick it down to juniors)


Evaluating: Questions To Ask

• What’s your Quality Assurance (QA) process?

• How will you train our team to become comfortable with what you build?

• How can you support us after launch?

• How did you arrive at the estimate for feature X? What was your thinking there?


Get Everyone In The Room


Evaluating: What Are You Comparing Here?


Engagement

CommunicationGuidance &

Prioritization

Full Bore or Something

Else?


The Diagnostic

Full Business Systems Analysis

Operations Specific

Basic Diagnostic


Recap


Recap

Tech

Drivers of Cost Total Cost

Pre-Selection

Research Reality Check Adjust & Advocate

Evaluation

Ask Questions Do it Together Compare Wisely

Engagement

Common Language Prioritize Together Diagnostic


Case Study


Case Study

• About TCTMD and CRF

• Technology Impact on Mission Implementation

• Partner Selection

• Technical Challenges and Getting Support

Thank You!

www.constructive.co @constr_ctive

[email protected] @ianmariano

Tech & the RFP Dance http://cnstrc.tv/1QumxM7

What Does a Website Cost & What Goes into Building It? http://cnstrc.tv/29EFfnd

The 4 Foundations of Effective Websites http://cnstrc.tv/2cYkCHp