Tips on Prioritizing Website Design Projects

Creative agencies have a multitude of clients from various industries with projects ranging in complexity. The project manager needs to ensure their team is on the same page regarding prioritization to provide realistic expectations. We’ve put together a few tips on prioritizing website design projects that we use to manage multiple projects successfully.

Existing clients understand that their project is not your only project. The degree of transparency for a project depends on the client’s desired level of participation. Typically, clients prefer to be deeply rooted in their first project with your company, then as time goes on, the degree of their involvement will lessen as their trust in you grows.

Project management with a new client, however, can be tricky; they may want to know which of your team members will be working on the project and have daily standup calls to check in on progress. You need to discuss priorities internally, and understand team and client perspectives on progress.

Tips on Project Prioritization - When Everything Is a Priority

What can I do to help prioritize website design projects?

Determining a project’s level of priority can be a puzzle. All clients are important, so how can we determine which projects get prioritized?

Ask yourself the following questions to determine which projects may need to be addressed sooner than others.

• When is the next deliverable for this project due?
• Is the client’s timeframe flexible for when this project must be completed?
• Does this project need to be finished in order for others to be started?
• What delays may be caused if this project is temporarily delayed?
• Is this project close to completion?
• Is this website design project nearing its budget limit?

The answers to these questions should give you some insight into which projects may need attention more than others.

How Do I Convey Priorities to My Team?

Website design projects have many moving parts and this can get complicated when you have different departments to oversee. An event may occur which places a project suddenly above another, but what is the best way to communicate that to your team while still remaining on track with the other projects?

1. Check In Meetings

There should be at least one all hands meeting each week to discuss projects at a very high level. The project manager should have at least four weekly internal meetings to discuss projects individually. If a project has an aggressive timeline or it has suddenly been placed as a top priority, you may need to schedule a daily standup to discuss progress.

Never limit communication!

It may look like 10+ internal meetings during the week when the waters start to get rough, but it may not always be this way. It is best to schedule as many check-ins as possible to ensure tasks do not fall through the cracks and that the team understands when priorities may need to shift.

2. Assign Deadlines

Having deadlines attached to project tasks is a good way for team members to stay on track. When team members receive a task that has a deadline attached to it, they’re more likely to start that task than one without a due date.

3. Reduce Distractions and Interruptions

This may seem obvious, but purposely blocking time to complete tasks, especially high impact and urgent tasks, is a good practice for every member of your team. Request team members deliberately turn off chat communication software and not check email when urgent tasks are due. Some agencies even block certain times of the day when they don’t schedule meetings so that team members can complete important tasks knowing they won’t get interrupted.

When prioritizing website design projects you’re bound to have some hiccups along the way. The key is to take note of what prioritization tips best worked for your team, and what could have been improved. Present the results to your team in your project post-mortem so you can become a more efficient team and your next project will go even smoother.