What Am I Buying? Understanding Website Cost and Technology

What Am I Buying?
Understanding Website Cost & Technology
Presented To
501 Tech NYC
September 21, 2016
@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
• The Drivers of Tech Cost and How To Asses Value

Why Does Tech
Matter?

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

Getting Started

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 Technical Hurdle
(What DoYou Know?)

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

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

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

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!

Drivers of Cost

Drivers of Cost
Open Source
vs
Paid
Integrations Hosting

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

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

The Total Cost of Technology
Includes More Than The Financial Cost,
it Includes Time & Human Capital

Assessing Cost &
Finding Partners

The Process
Pre-Selection
Process
Selection Engagement

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

• How do you feel about the current site’s content, both as it relates to our
programs as well as it relates to our brand? Does the voice effectively
engage external audiences? Is there content that should be added or
removed? How should the new site’s content differ?
• Beyond usability, visual design, & content, are there any features or
functionality you feel would help advance our mission or meet the
audience needs? Are there any publishing/back-office issues that you feel
need to be addressed to make the website more operationally efficient and
supportive?
• Are there any other comments or feedback that you’d like to add?
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
• What CMS platforms & other technologies do you work with?
• 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’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?
• How did you arrive at the estimate for feature X? What was your thinking
there?

Get Everyone In The Room

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

Case Study

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

Thank You!
www.constructive.co
@constr_ctive
ian.mariano@constructive.co
@ianmariano
Tech & the RFP Dance
http://cnstrc.tv/1QumxM7
What Does a Website Cost & What Goes into Building It?
http://cnstrc.tv/29EFfnd
The 4 Foundations of Effective Websites
http://cnstrc.tv/2cYkCHp

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