Integrated Web Project Teams

Posted by Barb Mosher Oct 16, 2007

I have been working on teams that develop websites and web applications for over ten years. It seems that the more I work on these teams the more a see the true integration that is required to produce a successful website. The majority of disconnect often occurs between the design team and the development team. These two teams need to be attached at the hip - you can't separate them.

The designers or the User Experience team get the upfront time with the client. They are the engagers, spending hours or weeks understanding the vision, the requirements, and the user experience. They create information architectures, wireframes and visual designs that make the web site seem real.

The developers take all this information and create functional application designs, they work with the technologies, and they write code. In essence, they bring that vision to life. Something the client can touch, feel and react to. These people rarely see the client for any amount of time.

The reality is these two teams can't operate in silos. It's important to have key development team members involved in the design phases, particularly architects and lead developers who create the functional and application architectures. They need to understand the thought processes behind the design so that they translate that into the proper technologies and code.

In turn, the design team needs to spend more time with the developers at checkpoints to ensure the development is producing the design expected. To wait until the end of development to view the finished product is a mistake that can cost time and money.

Design and development aren't separate activities; they are con-joined twins that work together bringing a vision to reality. These integrated teams are the most fun and the most challenging.