The Four Risks Every Website Redesign Project Must Tackle

Every project has risks. And while discussing them isn’t always comfortable and easy to define, it’s a necessary step in order to avoid schedule delays, budget overruns, or even project failure. At Genuine, we find that overall project success and client trust in us increases significantly when we discuss digital project risk early and often with our clients, brainstorming solutions and evaluating their impacts so our clients can make informed decisions. 

Here are the four most common risks we see with website redesign projects and how we mitigate them. 
 

1. A project begins without buy-in or clear goals from leadership

What we’ve seen: The project lead, CEO, and CMO all have different strategic objectives and, therefore, different levels of investment in a web experience transformation project.

Implications: This can translate to churn in project leadership, delays in approvals, impeded progress due to repetitive presentations and unnecessary re-drafts of work, and the potential for schedule and budget overrun.  

How we prevent it: We start projects by designating a client-side “executive sponsor” for regular check-ins with the agency, maintaining proper business context, agility to changing demands, and a steady hand over the project to guide it to a successful rollout.
 

2. Stakeholders ignore data during decision-making.

What we’ve seen: Despite previous research being shared, it’s natural for stakeholders to revert and make user experience and design decisions based on perception and subjectivity.

Implications: Teams miss the opportunity to take their digital experience from one that simply mirrors the business’ internal view of itself, to one that aligns to audiences’ proven needs.

How we prevent it: We adhere to a user-centric approach, framing and basing project decisions on concrete data via website analytics, quantitative audience research, user testing, and stakeholder interviews. 
 

3. Agency gatekeeping leads to conflict and re-work.

What we’ve seen: When multiple agencies service multiple departments within a client organization, it’s not uncommon for those departmental siloes to create barriers keeping the agencies from working directly with each other.

Implications: An inability to parallel-path workstreams between agencies often leads to project delays, redundant meetings, and wasteful rework. 

How we prevent it: We always encourage partnerships between agencies early in a project. Collaborating during Inter-Agency Team (IAT) statuses and mid-project retrospectives greatly helps reduce risk and keep teams on track… and, it makes things easier for the client(s) who know that the agencies are working as a coordinated team, too!
 

4. Timeline myopia creates time constraints later in the project.

What we’ve seen: Milestones and dependencies that are still months away are misunderstood, or teams don’t properly understand and anticipate how extra work on one step of a project can have profound impacts later on. 

Implications: It’s enough that unforeseen bottlenecks invariably delay projects, and it’s further complicated when teams get bogged down in the weeds of a particular phase that warrants more attention that anticipated.

How we prevent it: While more needs and complications along the way are almost guaranteed, it’s our job as an agency partner to help clients understand and weigh the tradeoffs of spending more time earlier on in a project, and what the costs or “debt” will be that they’ll have to be willing to accept later on. We create ways to visualize different approaches to navigating these hurdles and their impacts, so clients can see the whole picture and proceed with their eyes wide open. 
 

At Genuine, we don’t think Risk is a dirty word or a topic to be avoided. Risks are part of the journey to brand growth and better digital experiences. We want our clients to feel informed and empowered so they can decide the right path forward for them. Since transparency is at our core, sharing the risks associated with a project–and how we recommend mitigating them–is an essential element in all our collaborations. Let us know if you’d like to talk about risk mitigation!