A successful digital marketing communication project equals a happy customer whose marketing goals are being excelled, thumbs up from end-users and delivery on time & budget. Behind the scenes, it also means working at a humanly reasonable stress level, learning exciting new things, getting a bunch of esteem from colleagues in the business, etc...
Let's face it, not that many e-marcom projects are cum laude on all aspects. That made me think about principles that can help to go for gold.
It's important to do things in order. A Web project is a chain of events, it has a workflow and equal attention should be put in each stage of the process. The previous stage should be finished before diving deep into the next. Finishing touches are futile if the foundations aren't laid out yet. The problem is that sometimes, when a deadline's very near, people tend to take shortcuts. It's silly to start developing a feature that's not sufficiently thought through. With the same right, we can say that it's a waste of time to fully analyze a feature if strategy and concept isn't on solid grounds yet. In all types of project methodologies, whether you're applying the waterfall model, iterative development, agile/scrum or whatever, the following stages need to be done in order (in one or multiple cycles):
- Analysis & Design phase: functional & technical analysis, wireframing, concept visuals, graphic design
- Development phase, preferrably in iterations to enable early feedback
- Quality assurance, feedback, testing & corrections
- Delivery: packaging & deployment
We must work until it works before proceeding to the next step. Project planning should provide the breathing space to enable this. The end of every stage should pose a reasonable deadline. Feasible deadlines heighten motivation, whereas impossible deadlines have the effect that people don't even try. If people simple don't have enough time to complete a task, they deliver rubbish and the chance for errors increases. It's always costly to realize that an error has been made in an earlier stage, especially when this means starting all over again. That's why we should avoid extreme rushes like the plague. At every shortcut we take, we add a risk. "Quick" very often means "dirty". Agencies are fast companies and its employees rarely have loads of time to contemplate. We rush from project to project in a cycle, but we should never forget to come up for air regularly. We need to take the time to make post mortem evaluations and learn lessons to avoid making the same errors again (if any 
). A great Web project is always the result of a well collaborating team, in which each team member puts his heart & soul in every step of the process. Time and again.
