What am i buying understanding website cost and technology 17 ntc

What Am I Buying?
Understanding Website Cost & Technology
Presented To
17NTC - Washington, DC
March 24, 2016
#17NTCwebtechprimer
@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
• Tech Cost, Drivers of Cost, How To Asses Value

What Are The Stakes?

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

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 Total Cost of Technology:
Financial, Time, Human Capital, 
Opportunity, & Brand Impact

Financial
Total Cost
• Capital Expenditures
• Operational Expenditures

Time / Human
Capital
• Do you have necessary people?
Do you need outside help?
Total Cost
• How long do things take to get done?
And how hard are their tasks?
• What’s the impact on schedule?

Opportunity
• What About Lost or Missed Opportunities?
Total Cost
• Affects timing
Shorter Lead Time Adds to Total Cost
• Impacts the People & Effort Involved

Brand
• Brand Value Increased vs. Decreased
Total Cost
• Good vs. Poor Execution
• Trust vs. Mistrust

Drivers of Cost

Drivers of Cost
Open
Source
vs
Paid
Integrations HostingTiming Operations

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 Always
Equate 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

Integrations:
Content
Relationships
• How Are You Surfacing Those Relationships?
• What About Search? Simple vs. Complex
Drivers of Cost
• How Are You Relating Content?

Timing
• Missing Deadlines:
What Does That Cost You?
• Organizational Timing & Capacity
Drivers of Cost
• Event Driven Initiatives

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

Operations
• Administrative Overhead
Drivers of Cost
• Content Management & Production
• Ongoing Support (Internal & External)
Updates, Consultation, IT

Theory Into Practice

The Process
Pre-Selection
Process
Selection Engagement

What Do You Know?

What Do You Know?
Business
Requirements
• Plain Language & Solution Independent
• Bridge Knowledge Gaps Between
The Parts of Your Ecosystem
• Should Compliment & Extend Your Brand

What Do You Know?
The Size of
The Lift
• How Much Effort is This Really Going to Take?
• Set Realistic Expectations!
• Don’t Underestimate Integration,
External & Across Systems

What Do You Know?
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

What Do You Know?
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!

Pre-Selection
Give the People What They Want
Not What You Think They Want
Email
Internal
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

Reality Check

Pre-Selection: The Complexity Matrix
Assign Difficulty Levels to Features
Easy Medium Hard Gonzo

What Increases Complexity?
Customization Interactions
Future
Proofing

Time To Adjust

Selecting A Partner

Evaluating: Questions To Ask
• How did you arrive at the estimate for feature X? What was your thinking
there?
• 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 CMS platforms & other technologies do you work with?
• 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?

Evaluating: What Are You Comparing Here?

Engagement
Communication
Guidance &
Prioritization
Full Bore or
Something
Else?

The Diagnostic
Full Business
Systems
Analysis
Operations
Specific
Basic
Diagnostic

Recap

Recap
Tech
Total Cost
Drivers of Cost
Pre-
Selection
Research
Reality Check
Adjust & Advocate
Evaluate
Ask Questions
Do it Together
Compare Wisely
Engage
Common Language
Prioritize Together
Diagnostic

Case Study

Case Study
• About TCTMD and CRF
• Technology Impact on Mission Implementation
• Partner Selection
• Technical Challenges and Getting Help
• Engagement
• Support

Q&A

Thank You!
www.constructive.co
@constr_ctive
ian.mariano@constructive.co
@ianmariano
Tech & the RFP Dance
http://cnstrc.tv/1QumxM7
What Am I Buying?! Understanding Website Technology & Costs
http://cnstrc.tv/29EFfnd
The 4 Foundations of Effective Websites
http://cnstrc.tv/2cYkCHp
#17NTCwebtechprimer
Collaborative Notes: http://po.st/17NTCwebtechprimer
Session Evaluations: http://nten.org/17ntc-evals/

What am i buying understanding website cost and technology 17 ntc

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