» Anticipating a Project Go-Live Date >> The Retrospector

Anticipating a Project Go-Live Date

Posted September 30th, 2006
Categories: Technical, Corporate Life, Planning

Here I am an entire month after tinkering with a site re-design (which I’ll be activating this week), and I just can’t seem to help myself from getting nervous before making the drastic change. There’s simply no getting around the anticipation of a change that everyone will be able to see, and know that you had some hand in the effort…even if it is as simple as changing a WordPress template choice and customizing it to your liking.

I’ve got a few things to say about this subject, as I’ve had experience with quite a few of these in the past of various shapes and sizes.

1. If you’re not nervous the minute you go live, you’re probably doing something wrong.

I’ve only been on one project where I felt really good about launch day. I didn’t have a care in the world the couple days before-hand. Needless to say, I spent most of my waking hours the next week just trying to keep everything from falling apart. Of course there’s many lessons learned about projects as you get more practice, but being a little nervous and doing my best about being aware of things all the way up to the last minute is routine for me on project lifecycles now.

2. The longer you’ve had a plan and been able to stick to it, the more successful it will be.

Of all the projects I’ve been involved with, the ones that had the most project planning were the most successful. Now I, of all people, am not the over-planning type and generally take shortcuts wherever I can if it will save a project from being late. However, I totally respect the art of planning when it comes to completing a successful deliverable. There’s a few exceptions to the rule here, but in general…the more planning the project had, the better the odds were for an on-time completion.

3. Less scope creep typically means less defects.

Let’s face it. Scope creep happens on almost every project. For anyone following an iterative life-cycle, something along one of the iterations shown to the customer will trigger a response from them that forces you to change a few things. I don’t see anything wrong with changing some things along the way, but from what I’ve seen is…the more it happens, the more defects you will be likely to find in your final deliverable. This becomes less of a problem as your team gains experience in dealing with refactoring, risk-analysis on proposed changes to your designs, etc. Either way, the less scope creep you have, the more solid your delivered product will be.

4. Enjoy the rush, most things after go-live are maintenance for awhile.

There is nothing quite like the adrenaline rush of a newly released product. That overdose of sheer cosmic power that forces the blood through your ego-veins is sometimes impossible to maintain within your body’s limits. Sure, there’s going to be panic-moments after a launch where you react to get things under control…but for crying out loud, take a moment to really congratulate yourself on the delivery. You worked hard to get to this moment. Enjoy it. Enjoy it before you think too hard about the fact that you’re going to have your hands full of all the maintenance items that will stem from this launch or deployment. Rest assured, it normally settles down and you can go back to working on another creative assignment. For the near future though, you’re pretty much stuck in a fix-it mode until you know you have something solid.

5. There’s just nothing quite like it.

The thrill of delivering a final product to a customer is just unbeatable in my book. I’m really a customer-centric employee more often than most I guess. The best part about my job is that I know I’m bringing value to my customers and feeling a real sense of pride in my abilities as they marvel over their new “toys”. Sometimes it’s just the sigh of relief they make as you prevent a crisis or save hours of mindless work for someone through automating something for them. No matter what your service is…building a pile of success stories is not only good for your marketable profile, but it’s reassurance that you’re capable of meeting your goals repeatedly. Nothing is quite like knowing you can back up your “fightin’ words” when you have to throw down your estimations or opinions for future projects.

So what is it that you anticipate before going live on a project? Preparation and size of project usually effects my expectations. What factors effect yours? I find it just a little amusing that I still get nervous over simple little website changes when I’m also working on a project that makes this entire blog look like a single pixel on my screen of responsibility. I guess that’s just a habit I’ll never get over. Oh well, I’ll just enjoy it while I can.