Life after go live
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Building engagement & maintaining momentum after your digital project has gone live. Covers pointers for tracking and improving engagement, and puts in place processes for keeping clients motivated.
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Life after go live
- 1. LIFE AFTER GO- LIVEKATHERINE BARROW @KatBarrow | @PixelFusion_NZ
- 3. Digital products are like houses.
- 4. Go-live blindness [noun] A condition that results in a severe fixation on “getting it live” (aka “just f*ing ship it”), leading to a complete disregard for any activity beyond that point.
- 5. The best defence is a good offence. A good offence is a post go-live plan
- 8. 4. Track and identify engaged users 2. What are the primary tasks? DEFINE 1. What does engagement look like? 3. How frequently should they interact?
- 9. GROW 1. Talk to engaged users about what’s working 2. Optimise and replicate 3. Focus on growth 4. Be realistic with your plan
- 10. 3. Use learnings to innovate & create internal triggers RETAIN 1. New features soon become expected 2. Define re-engagement strategies
- 12. That’s all fine and dandy, but how do I get clients on board with this?
- 14. 3. Centre the conversation on both present and future requirements CONSISTENCY 1. Set the scene from day 1 2. Treat post go-live work as a matter of fact
- 15. PARTNERSHIP 1. Treat clients as partners, not clients 2. Expose clients to the process 3. Be honest and inclusive 4. Facilitate knowledge transfer
- 16. 3. Follow through on the process RELIABILITY 1. Be pro-active after go-live 2. Schedule regular catch-ups
- 18. A post go-live plan helps keep clients motivated and keeps products alive.
- 19. THE PROJECT IS NOT OVERKATHERINE BARROW @KatBarrow | @PixelFusion_NZ
Editor's Notes
- I thought I’d start this presentation out talking about an issue that’s been flying a little under the radar. It hasn’t really had much news coverage- in fact you probably haven’t heard anything about it at all, especially if you live in Auckland. The issue that I’m referring to is, of course, the housing market. [SLIDE]
- …the housing market. With all this coverage I’ve become far more aware of property when I’m driving around Auckland. What I’ve noticed even more than the incredible houses, are the ones that have been left to wrack and ruin. They’re neglected, paint peeling off the walls, weeds creeping along the drive- and I wonder “how could someone let this happen? How could they make such a massive investment in their future, only to let the potential value waste away?” We all know that there are a lot of reasons- it takes money to maintain a house. It takes motivation. You need to be looking ahead and planning. And, one of the primary reasons that people neglect their houses (and definitely the reason I don’t weed my garden) is that it’s just plain hard. So by now I’m sure you’ve probably guessed where I’m going with this. [Slide]
- Digital products are like houses. The digital market is booming, and every digital product is an investment with massive potential. It would be considered madness to invest millions of dollars in building a brand new house, only to leave it to fall into disrepair, and yet companies do this all the time with their websites. Their focus is on getting their new, shiny product live, and the bigger picture is often overlooked. I call this “go live blindness” [slide]
- We all fall victim to it- ourselves included. So what I’d like to talk about it today is the role that we as external parties can play in helping our clients (and ourselves) overcome the terrible malady that is go-live blindness, and put into place some best practices and processes for iterating products after that ever-so-important deadline [Slide]
- Like so many things in life, the best defence against post go-live apathy is a good offence. In this case, a good offence takes the form of a post go-live plan. [Slide]
- This plan should cover your user engagement strategy, as well as outlining what your client relationship will look like after the initial project is complete. Having this plan in place from the beginning of the project helps set the scene for life after go-live. [Slide]
- Let’s look at planning for engagement first. When you’re looking to build engagement, it’s not enough to measure success by the number of page views, the bounce rate or conversion rate- because the key to engagement is in long-term, repeated use. [Slide]
- So the first step of a good post go-live plan is to define what engagement looks like. [Slide] Your definition of engagement should answer questions like “how often should an engaged user use the product? What are the primary tasks they should be completing? Armed with this definition, you can put together a plan for tracking and identifying these users as part of post go-live activities. [Slide]
- So we know what an engaged user looks like, and we’ve got a plan for tracking and identifying them. What next? You want to talk to them of course! [slide] Rather than focussing on what’s not going well with the product, talking to users who are engaged gives you the opportunity to focus your efforts on successful pathways, while replicating their success in other areas of the product. Your post go-live plan should cover how often you’ll review engagement results and talk to users, as well as how you’ll use your learnings to grow your engaged users. When you’re creating this part of the plan, you’ll want to work closely with your clients to put together a realistic & achievable process.
- The final goal of designing for engagement is, of course, retention. [Slide] It’s no good focussing all your attention on building engagement initially, only to become complacent later. After all, we all know that features that are differentiators now will become base expectations in the near future. A good post go-live plan includes re-engagement strategies. It puts into place a system of external triggers and loops, aimed at bringing users back into the system- think emails, alerts, special offers and the like. While external triggers manually re-engage users, we can focus our time on innovating & building internal triggers using the insights we gather from our growing number of engaged users! [Slide]
- A quick example of this in practice. Last year, we were lucky enough to work with the Auckland Art Gallery on their new digital platform and website. A primary goal for the gallery was to build engagement with their online digital collection. Our initial definition of engagement was conservative. An engaged user was someone who viewed more than 1 artwork from the collection in a session, and who visited the site multiple times within a 3 month period. Since the site has gone live, we’ve been monitoring user activity, and tracking engaged users. What we’ve learnt is that one of the highest drivers of collection engagement on the site have been the whimsical curated sets of artworks following themes like “Rabbits” during Easter, or “Clouds” during a patch of bad weather. Upon further investigation, we have realised that these seemingly silly collections of artworks provide novice art lovers with an easy entry into the collection. They made the collection less intimidating, less daunting, and dealt effectively to the paradox of choice that casual browsers faced. Based on these learnings, we’re working with the gallery to expand their ability to present curated sets of artwork digitally, with a focus on increasing their ability to tell their stories in a digital format, while making them highly accessible.
- I’m sure by this stage all of you are thinking “sure that’s all fine and dandy, but how do I get my clients on board with this?” [Slide]
- That’s a really good question. In an agency or consultancy environment, we’re often dealing with a very different mindset. It can be difficult to get stakeholder buy in for post-go live work. So let’s look at the second part of the post go-live puzzle- getting your clients on board. [Slide]
- The first step here is to set yourself up for success by being consistent. [Slide] What I mean by this, is that you should set the scene with your clients from day one. We tend to do this right from our very first engagement with them as part of our business development process. We treat ongoing work post go-live as a matter of fact, and start planning for it immediately. Of course we don’t assume that we’ll be the ones doing all the work, but right from the start of a project, we’re focussing our clients’ attention on not only the immediate requirements, but their long term requirements as well. [Slide]
- One of our core beliefs is that we treat clients as partners, not clients. [Slide] While this may sound like “sales speak”, I assure you it’s not. Treating clients as partners allows us to be completely honest. By removing the trappings of a traditional client/vendor relationship, we empower both parties to share opinions and voice concerns freely. This open, two-way communication is crucial to building trust in the process and in each other. Additionally, bringing clients in to our team and including them in our discussions facilitates knowledge transfer and exposes them to ways of working that may have been quite foreign.
- Lastly, but most importantly, the key to keeping clients motivated is to follow through on the process. [slide] Nothing makes a process seem less valuable than when its original champions fail to see it through. As part of our go-live plan, we schedule quarterly client catch-ups. We use this time to reflect on the last 3 months, review the product’s performance, talk about the backlog and roadmap and generally offer help where it’s needed. Making sure that these meetings happen regularly shows clients that the project doesn’t end when the product goes live. It keeps issues fresh in their minds and gives us an opportunity to encourage them to continue to make improvements. Reliability builds clients’ faith in the process.
- Let’s take a quick look at the art gallery again. When we first took over the Gallery project, the team we were working with were used to a very traditional project management approach. They’d never heard of agile or product backlogs, and were used to infrequent, reactive communication. Their existing site has been more or less neglected for years and was badly in need of replacing. Over the course of the project, through including them in our day to day conversations, and by being consistent with our processes, they’ve undergone a massive mindset shift. They’ve seen the value in maintaining a backlog and developing a roadmap, and they’ve begun putting processes into place to progressively enhance the site over time. What’s more, they’ve proven to be the catalyst for a much wider digital transformation within the Gallery.
- So, to recap- the key to maintaining momentum and building engagement after a product has gone live is to have a solid post go-live plan in place from day 1. Your plan should cover what engagement looks like and how you’ll measure it, and put into place processes for actioning your learnings. But equally as importantly, a post go-live plan should also cover how you’ll engage with your client once the initial project is over. Being clear about the process from the start, including your clients, and ensuring that you follow through in the long term will help keep clients motivated, and help keep products alive. A well executed post go-live plan sends a powerful message:
- There’s still work to be done. The project is not over.