2016 is in full swing, I’ve heard from a number of readers like yourself, who are interested in taking on a project at work or pursuing a side project this year.
But they are worried about completing the project on time and on budget.
I totally get it.
As someone who takes on a number of projects each year, completing them is definitely a challenge.
For every project that is completed, there is probably a handful that are still simmering on the back burner or were just killed off altogether. The ones that were completed, well let’s just say a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into the completion.
There maybe folks telling you that it’s easy breezy. If that’s the case then ask them to walk you through their easy bake process, and then let me know what it is 😉
Today I want to give a behind the scenes look at the most recent project I completed: the newly designed Femgineer website, and share all the roadblocks I hit over the course of a year plus how I overcame them.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “A year? But you’re an engineer, shouldn’t it be all smooth sailing? And can’t you just crank it out in a weekend or a week?”
Sadly one of my superpowers is NOT being impervious to roadblocks…
Let’s start with a little context. Back in December 2014, I decided that I wanted to redesign the Femgineer website. I wanted to improve the copy and the design to provide a more branded experience that clearly conveys what Femgineer does.
Even though I could have built the website on my own, I just didn’t have time. I had a number of other projects like managing my speaking engagements, making a Kindle edition of my first book, launching a new public speaking course, and producing episodes of FemgineerTV. These projects were a priority because they generated revenue versus being an investment in future revenue like the website.
I also wanted to improve the design and copy from it’s current version, which was what I had created. To do that I knew I had to enlist the help of experts in design and copywriting.
Roadblock #1: Recruiting talent and managing expectations.
I was concerned about hiring new people that I hadn’t yet vetted, so I instead reached out to my editor to handle the copywriting for the website. Then I hired a designer who I had worked with before to handle the visual design and convert the designs to a WordPress template that could be installed on our website.
They were both agreed to take on the project and got to work.
The expectation was that it would take 1-2 months to complete the site design, template creation, and installation.
My editor and I sat down and mapped out about 8-10 pages. The designer got back to us and said that 8-10 pages would take more than 1-2 months to design.
We had a difference of expectations.
Roadblock #2: Out of scope.
Basically, we had under scoped the project. So I gave the designer more time.
While the designer worked on the design, I turned my attention to other projects.
I also took a vacation figuring that it was best to not micromanage.
When I came back, a few of the pages had been designed, but the project was by no means complete.
I started to worry because I had courses coming up, and was relying on the design of the new site to launch and promote them.
It became clear that the new site wouldn’t be finished in time for the launch. I had to get by with the old site. It wasn’t ideal, but I learned to make due.
Roadblock #3: Other priorities.
By April 2015, the designer had completed designs for all the pages, but they hadn’t been converted into a template.
The designer was also facing a personal issue. Instead of pushing, I suggested we wrap things up. I got all the designs and decided that I’d find someone to code them into a template and complete the installation.
Back to recruiting…
Except at this point, I was pretty focused on launching my new course and wanted to do a good job with it. I knew if I took on both projects, they would both suffer.
Given my limited bandwidth, I decided to put the website project on the back burner.
Roadblock #4: The real bottleneck.
Throughout 2015, I had a hard time prioritizing the site redesign, because other projects kept demanding my attention, such as teaching courses, speaking, and writing my second book.
I didn’t like having the site redesign on the back burner, but I also didn’t want it to take my focus away from the projects that were clearly generating revenue for me.
In the summer, I spoke less, which freed up my time to revisit the site redesign project.
Before I got to work I decided to take a step back and figure out what was really going on: I had become the bottleneck for this project.
I decided that I needed to hire someone to take care of everything: manage the project and make sure that the designs were converted to a template, then installed.
I took the time to vet out a few firms and finally decided on one.
They did a good job of completing the template but there were little things that had to be fixed. I just couldn’t sit there and test it all.
Instead of me providing them feedback, I crowdsourced the feedback, by soliciting help from readers like you 😉
This brought a fresh perspective, spotted issues that I wouldn’t have, and made it so that I wasn’t the bottleneck.
Once all the issues had been resolved it was time to install the website.
Except that it was almost November, and I was in the midst of launching my second book, and I was nervous about launching a new website too. If anything went wrong with the website it would impact book sales.
I decided to hold off until things quieted down during the holidays.
December rolled around, which meant one year had passed.
I got a very nice email from an engineer I had been mentoring for a while: Diana, who said she had some spare cycles over the holidays and would be open to redesigning my website.
Wow!
I told Diana what I really needed was someone to help me install the WordPress template that had already been designed!
Diana agreed to help.
Roadblock #5: The final stretch.
While we thought the installation would just take a day or two. It ended up taking longer because we had to work through a number of issues like the template having plugins that weren’t compatible with our version WordPress.
It’s a good thing we took the time to test it yet again on a test site.
We were so close and motivated to push through the tiny setbacks we faced on the final stretch.
Then finally, a few days after Christmas, while the coast was clear, we launched the new site!
Yes, there were a few minor issues after the launch, like our email redirecting to the wrong server, but we resolved them pretty quickly 🙂
…
A few days ago I was on the phone with a woman who works for a design company, and she said she really liked the design of the website, music to my ears!
Yes, this project took longer than I had anticipated, but part of it was prioritizing and removing myself from being the bottleneck. I’m also proud to say that I didn’t go over budget. (There were some other projects in 2015 that did, but that’s for another post…)
During the course of the project, I didn’t blame anyone for the delays because I’ve learned over the years that delays are natural. I also didn’t think the universe was out to get me. I’ve learned that it’s natural to face a series of roadblocks, and if you want to overcome them you just have to be resourceful.
Now that you’ve read my experience, I’d like to learn from you! What is one of the roadblocks you’ve faced and how did you overcome it? Please let me know in the comments below.
