The Complete Guide to Web Design Project Management

Part 1: what's web design project management?

So, what's project management when it involves web design and development projects? Simply put, it’s the way you organize and manage the time and resources needed to complete a client project by the deadline.

“Managing projects may be a unique balance of maintaining control and being flexible,”

“At the top of the day, you would like to take care of an honest relationship with the client which means being flexible to the requirements of their business.”

Good web design project management takes under consideration a spread of things, including:

• The goal of the project

• The sort of project you're taking on

• The number of stakeholders and team members involved

• The amount of time you've got to finish the project

There are tons to unpack when it involves project management theory and practices, so let’s break this down a touch more, starting with identifying the true goal of your client’s project.

Identify the true goal of your client’s project

You never want to leap right into a project without first getting a transparent understanding of what the client ultimately wants the deliverable to realize.

Whether you’re building a fresh online store, migrating your client’s current business to a replacement platform, or creating a custom app that will give their online store specific functionality, effective project management starts long before the work begins.

Encourage your client to urge specific about what they need but also why they need it.

Once you’re clear on the goal of your project, make certain to incorporate it in your client contract. Learning the way to write a contract may be a good way to guard yourself and your client when it involves managing expectations, timelines, payments, and deliverables.

4 project management methodologies for web design and development

Once you and your client agree on deliverables and project timelines in your contract, keep your project on target by adopting a project management methodology that works for your team and project goals. While there are many planning frameworks to settle on from, we’ll highlight four that are proven to figure well in managing web design and development projects.

1. Kanban

Sticky note enthusiasts, take note: the Kanban method of project management may be highly visual, simplified thanks to managing project workflows. Kanban originated in Japanese car manufacturing and was later adapted within the realm of software development. Kanban encourages acts of leadership from all project contributors, leading to strong team collaboration.
By employing a kanban board, all contributors can see project progress and bottlenecks, and may intentionally set a work-in-progress limit, which prevents them from performing too many tasks directly.

Elements of Kanban, particularly the kanban board, are often found in many other project management styles, like Scrum, and there are many online project management tools leveraging kanban boards as a key part of project workflows, like Trello, Asana, and GitHub project boards.

Kanban is beneficial regardless of how experienced you're like a project manager and may be employed by individuals with one client, or by larger teams with multiple stakeholders per client account.

2. Agile

The Agile process uses a sprint approach where project deliverables are broken into several sprints or “cycles.” With an important specialize in flexibility and collaboration, the Agile methodology is beneficial for web design and development projects requiring tons of iteration and communication.

This method allows both individual contributors and stakeholders to reply to changes quickly because, instead of assuming your deliverable deadlines will remain as predicted, you proactively plan for changes by adopting an iterative planning strategy.

Instead of highlighting the completion of larger deliverables, like a full website or app, iterative planning includes more frequent milestones that note the deadlines of minor project tasks—such as single page designs, wireframes, and more.
As these smaller tasks add up to larger milestones, your progress is often wont to forecast and adjust your schedule as required.

The agile process gives stakeholders—clients and team members alike—a better idea of the project status because you’ll have more opportunities to identify red flags while the project is ongoing. Plus, you’ll get the additional advantage of showing your client that employment is being completed in real-time.

3. Waterfall

 Waterfall project management may be a linear, sequential methodology where tasks within a project must be completed before subsequent one begins. It’s a more rigid approach to project management because it was developed within the manufacturing and construction industries. All requirements got to be laid out and defined from the start of the project.
While it’s less flexible than Agile, it’s still a robust option for web design and development projects because it’s an easy methodology, shows progress with milestones, and requires detailed documentation and a transparent concept. These workflow elements force all stakeholders (including your clients) to know deliverables and timelines.

4. Scrum

Ideal for larger or more advanced teams, the Scrum framework can help teams deliver more frequently, and keeps all stakeholders aligned and on target throughout the creation process.
In sprints of 1 to four weeks, teams meet daily for a 15-minute meeting where each team member answers three questions:

• What did you are doing yesterday?
• What will you be doing today?
• Is there anything blocking your progress?

Rather than an easy status update, these questions help maintain communication, visibility, and accountability throughout the project. The “Scrum Master” is that the project manager is liable for helping contributors clear any roadblocks. Larger teams usually have the power to dedicate a teammate to the present role.
“We typically use Scrum methodologies, as tons of the projects we do involve many moving parts,” says Rebecca Worsley of Rainy City Agency, a Shopify Partner. “It’s really important for our team to understand what tasks they need to figure on and when the deadlines got to be met so that they can manage their time effectively.”

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