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How Many People Work in Your Internet Department?
WorkinTooHard asks: "Two years ago, I took the job of Internet Marketing Manager for a international company, with a crazy idea that I could convince senior management that the internet wasn't a fad. The only problem was that I didn't expect a (respected) mid-level manager to be the road block. We are in the middle of a major website redesign (the current site has not been updated in over 8 years) and everyone is asking why it takes so long to complete, and almost daily I have to explain that I do not have enough manpower. Of course, I can't prove ROI until the new site is launched (a great Catch22). How many people do you have working in/on your company's Internet/Intranet and Extranet sites and applications? How many full-time web-application developers, content providers, analytics people, UI designers, email marketing people, and so forth?"
"Please note that this includes anyone who works directly in building and maintaining your companies current website, electronic marketing and Internet applications. If you can, include the size of your company, number of employess, the number of active products being sold/supported, and how much outsourcing you do? The company I am currently working for has over 13,000 active products and over 30,000 products which need to be supported. We do no outsourcing, have over 900 employess in North America (over 8000 worldwide) and a total of 2 full time web developers, 1 part time developer/SQL guru and 1 content/data person as well as two people in our MarCom office which periodically write copy."
You need to think like your managers think (I know, THE HORROR!!!). They can't *prove* any of the projected ROI numbers on any of their other projects, and you aren't expected to either.
You need to make a reasonable educated guess based on similar implementations. Talk to people who have done similar projects for similar companies and get their actual ROI numbers. Take a good look at that, then guess. That should help with the justification.
Oh, and to answer your question -- there's 1 in our company.
1) convince your trouble maker and turn him into an ally and use him as a buffer against those above him.
2) convince those above him what's right|wrong and leave your immediate troublemaker in the cold.
3) continue to bang your head against the the wall until you reach brain or they send you out the door with a patch of skull missing.
4) You realize this is an intractable situation and high-tail it out of there while you still have the ability to do so on your own terms.
There are subtle nuances, but unless you are adept at pulling a rabbit out of the hat, I'd vote for #4, regardless of how long you've been there. People understand bailing out of failing situations.
I'd be a little worried if I were asked to show the ROI of any web site that wasn't specifically for an on-line retailer. How did you show the ROI on a large, wooden, hand carved sign in the 1600's?
A web site (as simple or complex as it may be) is a marketing tool for a business. And anyone with an MBA or equivalent experience will tell you that developing an ROI on a marketing campaign is nearly impossible, at best.
As for "how many" developers it's going to take... Check out today's story, 60% Of Windows Vista Code To Be Rewritten, which has some great advice about how to get 9 women pregnant and have a baby in 1 month. (Or was that "getting 5 Jazz players pregnant"? I don't remember...)
I'm the lone developer in my state agency's "website department". We have over 250 employees and huge information publishing needs. Like the submitter, we are in the midst of a website redesign using a commercial CMS. A county spent 6 months with a staff of four programmers to build their site with the newer version of this software. I was asked to do it in 3 months by myself. I'm spending entire weekends and nights in my cubicle coding this thing in JSP. No overtime pay. It's a month past deadline and if I don't finish it by the end of next week, I'm fired.
Morale to this story: working for the government sucks as much as people say it does.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
It sounds like you have made the classic mistake of ripping out and replacing something that worked simply because you wanted to do something better. That's almost always a bad idea without buy in from the highest levels.
Sure, the old site is crufty, but it is paid for, and the stuff you are doing is not. If you don't have the political pull to spend money at will it is almost a better plan to find minor changes that can be done inexpensively but that yield proportionally large benefits. Once you have a few visible "successes" under your belt then you can start trying to change the world. Until then, promising the moon without being able to deliver is simply a full-proof way to fail. If you have undertaken a project that you can not complete with your current staff and management is starting to question the viability of your project then you probably had better start thinking about plan B. Plan B probably should not include "industry statistics."
Seriously, you need to deliver something. Not complain about needing more help.
"How many people do you have working in/on your company's Internet/Intranet and Extranet sites and applications? How many full-time web-application developers, content providers, analytics people, UI designers, email marketing people, and so forth?"
Every time I see something like the text quoted, (and this is the 3rd time in about as many weeks that I've seen such questions here -- not to attack the Slash Staff, btw...) I feel like it's a probe question. I wonder if it's well-crafted and paid for so that the readers get all riled up and reply. Like the people with nicknames, but personal web pages. You then go on to say how many MySQL devs, and so on you have, trying to help out this guy. For all you know, it could be post-worthy by Slashdot staff standards, but the poster or piece-writer could be looking for sales avenues leading to sales revenues.
Some of you guys out to be wary of being "taggable" while disclosing what products you use. You never know: that could be Oracle or ms digging for treasure. If your company is susceptible to discounts and promises of upgrades and marketing dollars, YOU could be out of a job if they replace YOUR tool of choice...
Just some thoughts...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Not only contractors, but consider interns as well. Lots of capable college kids are willing to sell their sould for an internship, so take advantage of the oppertunity. You get cheap disposable labor, and they get that all-valuable 'job-experience'. Plus, you never know when you might stumble upon a long-term fit for your company.
1) What is the priority of your project?
2) Based on #1, ask for resources based on apparent priority.
If they do not meet your requests for item #2, kill the project. Otherwise it will just drag on as a zombie and suck your life away.
To kick start the project, try to find an upper manager who is enthusiastic about the project. In project management lingo this is called a 'sponsor'. This person will politic with the rest of management to keep the project alive, a high priority and lobby for money.
If you cannot find a sponsor, kill the project. Use your budget and personnel where they can have an impact, not on a zombie project.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+