Website teams come in all shapes and sizes. There are many perspectives that come into play at every stage of building a site. If you want to leverage as much expertise as possible to build your site, you want to hear from the right people, right from the start. So, who do you choose for your website team?
First, be inclusive
In the early stages, you want to reach out to a lot of people. If you do not know where to start, think about the people who are closest to the client, or closest to the actual value exchange. Where are transactions happening, or where are the uses for your site the most urgent? Those people are the first ones you should invite to have a voice.
The next people you should invite are leaders who have experience in the same kinds of projects. These could even be people from outside your organization. If you have conflicts or non-disclosure agreements, you can still ask colleagues about their experiences in a neutral way. You don’t have to reveal anything about your project to network with peers or mentors, and you are not sharing anything at this stage besides a list of questions.
The next group are those who will be doing the implementation, from the project leads down to the most junior designer or copywriter. You may be surprised what you can learn from junior team members who haven’t developed the same biases as more senior team members.
Then, be selective
After you have heard from your broad group of team members, you can start to compile a list of goals, priorities, and problems to solve. For the team that will implement the solutions, you need to be selective.
The goal is to create a core team for core tasks. By now you should have identified who the primary stakeholders are, and if you haven’t, ask those stakeholders you already know to invite any other key leaders that need to be involved on a regular basis.
But, don’t stop there. When you hear good insights, invite that person to the first core team meeting. Don’t discriminate based on experience level or tenure, only on the quality of the responses or expertise.
Two groups, two roles
These two groups have very different roles. The larger, general group that includes colleagues as well as team members will be extremely helpful for research and testing. By contrast, the core team is called when critical feedback is needed and key decisions must be made.
Inclusion within each group need not be permanent. There can be a lot of overlap in the two teams, but by no means does anyone need to be involved in both groups, apart from kickoffs. People can be added or dropped as needed. However, the role of each group and the criteria for inclusion should be clearly defined.
The general group is like a Rolodex
For most projects, the general group can include anyone who can provide input. They do not even need to know that they are part of a group, who the other members are, or what the goals are. It is helpful to think of this as a contact list or a rolodex, and you can reserve it for your use only.
This is a common practice in the event promotion industry, where people bring their list of contacts for use on each new gig. I worked with a promotions manager at a restaurant and entertainment company who brought in a thick stack of business cards. For the first week, he would bring them in each morning, remove the rubber band, and go right through the stack, calling each contact to personally let them know about his new role and highlight his new company. That is an excellent way to build your network, and it will provide a great resource for future projects.
The core team is like a brain trust
By contrast, members of the core team must be able to provide valuable insight, make decisions, or both.
Further divisions can be handled in a variety of ways. For example, in a voting system, primary stakeholders can be given voting power, while others who are temporary or more distant from the project do not have votes. However these politics are handled, every member in the core team must be entrusted with contributing meaningfully to the project.
Keeping this core team clearly delineated cuts both ways, and it is bilaterally beneficial. If a core team member can no longer be involved, no matter what the reason, there is a clear line drawn and he or she can be removed from the communications and the meetings. Both the group and the person are clear on whether they are included and share the responsibilities of the team.
I have worked in organizations where this was not well defined and maintained, and it became frustrating to join meetings and find out a half hour in that I wasn’t needed at all. Setting the expectation for the core team prevents wasting your team members’ valuable time. On the other hand, it also helps alleviate the question of who needs to know important information about the project, and along with it, frustrations over not being included. If someone is unjustly snubbed, the answer is simply, “ok, we have a group dedicated to this. We will include you in the communications and invite you to the meetings.”
Meetings are a much larger discussion in themselves, but in general, if you keep good records, even members who come on late shouldn’t have to feel like they’ve completely missed out.
Getting to know your team members
It is not enough to just get everyone in the same room (or virtual room) to accomplish your goals. Especially in the early stages of your project, you want to lead your team toward clearly establishing goals and recognizing where value is generated. In my book I have created a surefire way to get people talking about the right things for your website project. You can even download and share the survey provided to save even more time when you’re full speed ahead to get your site off the ground. Take a look at the other features of this indispensable guide to your project: Building Better Sites.