Your Project Hub is actually a web site in its own right and will serve as the nerve center for your project. It will also be one of your most important tools for tracking your progress, staying within your budget, and managing the enormous amount of information that will be generated during the construction of your site. This guide will give you an idea of what you'll find on your hub and how to use it to your advantage. We hope that you will take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with this resource.

     Depending on the size of the site and the number of people working on it, your Hub will be structured in a varying number of password protected layers. While it may at first blush seem like overkill, this "onion" structure creates a manageable method of controlling access to various areas of the Hub. You may, for instance, want all of your marketing managers to assess the design studies, but you wouldn't necessarily want them to have access to all of the contractual particulars. For this reason it is going to be important that you protect your passwords in the same way that you protect your bank account numbers. When we construct your Hub, we will need a list of everyone who will be working on the project, along with a list of who has access to what.

Overview of the Process
The multistage monster shown below is a production chart used to model the evolution of one of our Intranet sites. As you can see, developing a Web presence can be a complicated business. ...

Client Team
Phases and Actions
Project Management
Design Staff
Technical Staff
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Phase 1: Strategies and actions
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Project Tools
*
 
 
*
 Contracts
*
 
 
*
 Schedules
*
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
*
 Questionnaires
*
 
 
 
 User Profiles
*
*
 
* 
 Goals and Requirements
 
 
 
*
 Strategic Brief
*
*
 
 
 Creative Brief
*
*
 
 
 Technical Brief
*
*
*
*
 Basic Content Plan
*
*
 
 
 Site Map
*
*
*
 
 Engineering Specifications
*
*
*
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Final Schedule
*
 
 
 
 Final Estimate
*
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Phase 2: Creative development
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
*
 Content Identification
*
*
 
*
 Content Schedule
*
 
 
*
 Content Development
*
*
 
*
 Editing and Preparation
*
*
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Initial Design Studies (concepting/branding)
*
*
 
 
 Comps(look and feel/navigation/User Interface)
*
*
*
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Prototypes(Final direction)
*
*
*
 
 Working Model
*
*
 *
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Phase 3: Technical Development
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Production
*
*
*
 
 Engineering
*
*
*
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Alpha
*
*
*
 
 Internal QA
*
*
*
 
 Beta 1,2
*
*
*
 
 Internal QA
*
*
*
 
 Final Internal Site
*
*
*
 
  
 
 
 
 
 Phase 4: Delivery
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
*
 Content Freeze
*
 
 
*
 External Staging
*
*
*
*
 External QA
*
*
*
 
  
 
 
 
*
 Site Measurement
*
*
*
  Documentation/Templates
*
*
*
  Preflight Check
*
*
*
*
 Launch
*
  
*
         
  Strategy Assessment
*
*
 
   
 
 
 
*
 Maintenance
*
*
*




While not all projects are quite this complex, they all share the same basic evolution. A friend of mine who spent the better part of her girlhood on an Iowa farm likenend the process to raising chickens. First, there's the planning stage. (do you need a chicken?...what are you going to do with the chicken?.....what kind of chicken do you want?...etc.) If everything goes well, you get an egg ( a shell with some content). Then there's typically a period of time when it appears to the outside world (and the client) as if nothing at all is happening. Finally, after a proper period of incubation and internal testing, the creature emerges, fully formed and operational. With a good measure of expert care, it will go on to lead a long, productive life.

     Anyway, enough about chickens. Now that you have an idea of the steps involved, let's take a look at the Calendar view..........		  

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