There are many ways to destroy a perfectly designed strategy. Here are two.
One of the things Web teams constantly struggle with is the ying and yang between centralized governance and the wants, needs, and demands of stakeholders and line of business (LOB) managers who operate different parts of the site.
Over the past few years, I’ve seen these dynamics play out many companies – and in different ways. The most memorable are:
The inmates run the asylum
Here, I’m reminded of a huge software company who belatedly realized that competitors were selling their low cost software online – and they needed to get with the program.
To achieve this, the dotcom team spent weeks confabing with line of business marketing managers and stakeholders to get their buy in and identify requirements. Then they consolidated the feedback and developed a working project plan.
Three months later, the dotcom team was ready to launch the company’s first foray into ecommerce. The platform was built. LOB marketing managers were trained. Then everything went off the rails.
