The site was promised for the start of the season and launched as the season was ending. It is a familiar story, and the developer usually gets the blame. Sometimes fairly. But more often deadlines slip because of things that depend on both sides and can be foreseen in advance.
Below are the most common causes of delays and how to organize the work so the site goes live when you need it.
Materials arrive late
The most common cause: texts, photos, the logo, and prices are gathered as the work goes. The developer waits, switches to other projects, and does not come back right away. It is better to agree which materials are needed by which date and collect them before the start. More on this in the note on website copy.
Edits without limits
Each edit on its own looks small. But when they arrive one by one over weeks, with new ideas mixed in, the project never ends. An agreement on rounds of edits helps: notes are collected in one list, the developer makes them, and only then does the next round start. How to give such notes is covered in the note on design feedback.
Slow approvals
If several people make the decision and each opinion is collected in turn, a design can wait for an answer longer than it took to make. Appoint one person who gathers opinions inside the company and gives the developer the final answer, and agree on a response time.
Forgotten integrations
Connections to a CRM, payments, a warehouse, or a Telegram bot are often remembered at the end. Yet these are the hardest tasks to estimate, because they depend on other systems and access to them. List every integration in the brief and hand over access at the start. An example of a good brief is in the note on a website brief.
Stages instead of one deadline
- Structure and page prototypes
- Design of the key pages
- Layout and content
- Integrations and forms
- Testing, fixes, and launch
Each stage has its own date and a result you can look at. That way a delay shows up at once, not in the final week. If the deadline is tight, you can launch a first version with the essentials and add the rest afterwards.
Before launch, the checklist from the note on accepting a site will come in handy. If you want to discuss a project and realistic timelines, use the contact form.