Project Planning Guide

Plan the website you need before redesigning the one you have.

A useful modernization project starts with business priorities, content and operational needs. Use this guide to prepare a brief that goes beyond colors and page layouts.

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Planning step 1

Define the job of the website

List the most important visitor tasks: understanding a service, finding a location, making an inquiry, placing an order or discovering an event. Choose a small set of outcomes that the project can actually influence.

Planning step 2

Audit content and ownership

Inventory important pages, documents and forms. Mark what should be retained, rewritten, merged or retired, and identify who can approve each area.

Planning step 3

Map the platform and dependencies

List the CMS, hosting, domain access, plugins, integrations and third-party services. Record who controls each account without sharing credentials in a general project brief.

Planning step 4

Plan migration and continuity

Map old URLs to their intended destinations, confirm what data must move and define a rollback approach. Protect useful content rather than discarding it because the layout is changing.

Planning step 5

Agree on launch tests and support

Test forms, navigation, device layouts and key transactions. Assign update, backup and support responsibilities before handing the site over.

Your preparation checklist

Bring these details into the brief.

Priority audiences and tasks
Current URL and content inventory
Platform and integration list
Content owners and approvers
Redirect and migration requirements
Success measures and support ownership

Common pitfalls

What to avoid.

Designing before defining the problem

A visual refresh can leave the most important usability or operational issues untouched.

Losing valuable content

Do not remove useful URLs or documents without a deliberate retention or redirect decision.

Leaving forms until launch day

Confirm notification delivery and successful submissions in the real environment before publishing.

Questions & answers

A few useful details before we start.

Do we need to replace the CMS?

Not always. Start with requirements and the limitations of the current implementation.

Should we rewrite every page?

No. Keep content that is accurate and useful, and focus effort where it will improve the visitor journey.

Keep exploring

Tell us what needs to work better.

Bring the goals, constraints and current situation. We’ll help define a practical next step.

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