This tutorial was delivered at the J. Boye Philadelphia conference in May 2014, and covers how to set yourself up for success when making big changes.

1. Making big changes
to your website or
intranet
David Hobbs

2. http://websiteproductmanagement.com

3. About me
Vision / long
range planning
Selection / RFP /
Proof of Concept
/ Pilot
Implementation
/ Rollout /
Migration
Tweaks, cleanup,
and/or
improvements
For “one time” changes Ongoing
I help organizations focus their websites with big changes, by guiding, reframing,
gaining consensus, and providing oversight.

4. Are you working on:
a) a single big change (like a
replatforming project), or
b) improving your ability to
respond to change in general ?

5. We will start at the end

9. What people see
needs to be
maintained and grown
The inner workings
matter, since they
enable the above

10. Vision / long
range planning
Selection / RFP /
Proof of Concept
/ Pilot
Implementation
Tweaks, cleanup,
and/or
improvements

11. http://websiteproductmanagement.com/flo
wchart.html

12. What types of change are the
hardest for you to handle?

13. Some change should be fast,
and some should be slow

14. What should
be fast may be
camouflaged

15. What types of changes should
happen slower on your site?

16. Ongoing change

17. Define a new service for
something that should happen
faster.

18. THE BONES

19. • Allow what you know needs to happen soon,
and don’t completely block yourself in
• Notably, it’s not about a ship-in-a-bottle
• NOT about a rigid infrastructure
• Enables growth

20. “Broken gets fixed. Shoddy lasts forever.”
— Jack Moffett

23. 3 Common “Bones” problems
• Shoddy work lasts forever
• The amorphous blob
• The rigid framework

24. What type of skeletal problems
does your site have?

25. It’s not about defining the whole thing and
then phasing over time.

29. http://hobbsontech.com/content/early-
planning-big-website-changes

30. What is your bias?

31. It’s not about defining the whole thing and first
getting the structures right either.

36. Fragmentation

37. Fragmentation

38. Fragmentation

39. Fragmentation

40. When you talk about your web
presence, what percentage
are you talking about?

42. A more rational approach

44. What is the vision for your web
presence?

45. Illustrate the implications
http://hobbsontech.com/content/visualizing-impact

46. http://hobbsontech.com/content/content-handling-process-asking-right-content-migration-questions

47. How will you determine and
illustrate the impact of your
vision?

48. Instead, define the essentials and broadly how
you will be moving forward

49. We’ll need:
• Multiple
green spaces
• Various trees
and
shrubbery
• Nice paths

52. For your big changes, what
needs to be defined now, and
what can you define later?

55. Technical Drag
Even if you implement ideally, more complexity
takes more effort to deal with
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3a18826/

58. Where are problems injected
into your website?

59. http://hobbsontech.com/content/standards-arent-defined-theyre-architected

60. http://hobbsontech.com/content/rules-content-migration

61. http://migrationhandbook.com/self-evaluation/

62. How will you reduce weight now
and on an ongoing basis?

64. Content
Site
Core

65. How can you maximize impact
of your changes?

67. (unicorn)

68. (muddy puddle)

69. • Unfocused
• Not possible in
the first place
• Tried all at
once rather
than over time
Why the mismatch?
http://hobbsontech.com/content/castles-and-tents

71. What are your priorities for the
next six months?

72. http://websiteproductmanagement.com