Planing - time to take a step back and bask in your success--or learn what made your project go wrong

After the dust has settled on your project, it's time for a final critical examination of your Web strategy. You should undertake the project's postmortem while the proverbial body is still warm, either directly after the conclusion of the project or campaign or at a predetermined date relevant to your company's fiscal calendar. The postmortem is the vital final step in a well-developed and well-executed Web strategy, offering the opportunity for both team members and managers to analyze the project's success or failure and to cogently synthesize knowledge gained.

When composing a postmortem report, focus on two main elements: measurable goals met and lessons learned. Directors and decision makers will want to know if your strategy met outlined business goals and whether the product was delivered on time and within budget. The remaining portions of the postmortem should provide a detailed record of what worked and what didn't so that you and your team can apply this knowledge to your next Web strategy. More specifically, the project postmortem report should address the following questions:

• Were the strategic goals initially outlined actually realized?
• What was the actual development timetable and budget for the project? How accurate were your original projections?
• In what ways was the strategy a success? What elements of the implementation worked particularly well?

If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently? For you and your Web team, this will be the most valuable aspect of the postmortem examination. Be sure to detail any technical problems, unanticipated user errors, positive and negative feedback, resource issues, and any other lessons learned that might be applied to future ventures.
You don't have to wait until the project is dead and buried to learn valuable lessons, however. You should be thinking of your final investigation throughout the development and implementation cycles. Before you hit full throttle, begin keeping a log of elements that work and don't work, and be sure to maintain a constantly updated specification. After continual improvements and bug fixes, your original specifications will not precisely reflect the finished product, and you'll want a record of the project as it actually went down--not just as you initially planned it--in order to properly dissect and understand what you've created.

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