As we kick off 2021, I want to take this opportunity to look back on the progress we made in 2020 and provide a quick recap on the items we discussed in our December huddle.
If you were able to attend our December 2020 huddle, you are aware we are shifting away from a phased approach where we previously were focused on an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) phase for our initial launch, focused on our prospective students, and we are now launching a full external site experience to be delivered in an all in one launch. All external pages will go live at one time rather than in multiple phases. We will still do a phased planning approach with the content to promote an even workload and provide adequate support to all departments involved.
There are several benefits that were evaluated to inform this decision:
- Better user experience with students as our focus
- All external departments will go live at once
- More time for change management and training
- More time for integrations
- More efficient QA
- No question as to which phase which content is part of
- Workload is spread out evenly
- Lower financial costs overall
- Less risk for:
- Redirect failure
- Content duplication
- Missing content
With this revised approach, we are restructuring the project plan:
- Refining the launch date for the full external launch
- Calculating timelines based on individual collaborator’s available time
- Restructuring the whole content section of the plan
We will perform audits of the existing site as laid out in the table below and the audits will help us determine an accurate go-live date. We plan to propose the new full external site go-live
timeline in May.
Development Challenges Faced
As with all our departments and colleges for the year of 2020, the digital strategy team faced several challenges to meeting and exceeding our goals. Our team came together and was fully formed in July of 2020, and once formed we pushed through countless website redesign tasks while also assessing and executing on needs outside the project. Other priorities that took team members away included:
- COVID-19 Website Updates
- Case reporting metrics on site
- COVID-19 app development and updates
- Website security updates
- Rebranding of our existing sites
- Other existing site maintenance
Through dedication, our team was able to finalize these designs, and more:
Search, News, Events, Bios, Blog, Landing Page, 404, Departments, Locations
Development tasks for the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) portion of our site is winding down, and we have less than 25% of stories to go for MVP, test and adjust. QA testing has uncovered many bugs that we have fixed and further testing and refinements are to be expected.
The digital team is scoping alternative resources to assist where needed, prioritizing content, and streamlining processes to move things along faster. We are working to refine processes for more efficiency:
- Creating a better tracking system, allowing more automation vs manual efforts
- Perfecting training documentation
- Planning and conducting a full audit of the current website which has MVP pages already completed
- Generating additional communication templates for consistency
As we move forward, we intend to:
- Communicate with collaborators on a bi-weekly basis
- Continue refining processes for clarity and efficiency
- Accruing collaborators available time to determine if additional resources are needed
- Completing website content audits
I look forward to meeting with you all in the new year and continuing our path of success in delivering our best face forward through our new cmich.edu.
Best,
Lisa Wendland
Director of Digital Strategy
University Communications