Project Roles and Responsibilities - Client facing document (PDF)

Thank you for choosing Vision Internet for your website redesign! We’re looking forward to learning more about your goals for the project and bringing them to life online. One of the most important elements of the development process is to make sure the right people are involved in each stage. The following guide is intended to help you identify who should be involved and in what capacity. (Keep in mind it might make sense for multiple people to fulfill a specific role, or for one person to fill multiple roles.)

Individual Roles

Sign Off Decision Maker (final decision maker for the project). This key role will be responsible for:

• Signing off on Vision deliverable, including:
  • The project wireframe
  • Homepage design comp
  • Interior page design comp
  • Prototype website
• Engaging additional key stakeholders, such as Council or Administration, in any major decisions requiring their input
• Approving any change in scope or request for Extra Work beyond the original contract
• Acting as the escalation point for the Vision Project Manager about any project concerns
• Approve going live and DNS updates

This role is typically filled by:

• Administration (City/County Manager, Executive Director)
• Communications Director
• IT Director / Chief Information Officer
• Project Manager

Project Manager 

Vision Internet’s primary contact within your organization. Unless otherwise directed to do so, the Vision Project Manager will direct all communications to this person. As the primary communication hub, they will be responsible for:

• Aggregating and prioritizing feedback and questions from the other project members and transmitting them to Vision
• Serving as the prime contact for the project
• Coordinating your staff and resources for phone calls, meetings, trainings and deliverables to ensure timely delivery of key information to Vision
• Keeping Vision Project Manager informed in regards to events, priorities, projects etc. as that may impact the timeline of the website project

Most commonly, this role is filled by:

• Communications Director
• Public Information Officer
• IT Director
• Web Administrator / Developer
• IT Project Manager / Consultant
• Assistant City Manager

IT Contact

Vision’s liaison regarding information technology matters. They will be involved in the Go Live phase of the project and will work with the Vision Project Manager to schedule DNS redirection at the appropriate time. If there are hosting, Active Directory/Intranet, 3^rd party integration, or other IT matters, the IT Contact may interface directly with a Vision IT Contact. Installing heatmap and providing access to existing website traffic statistics or setting up Google Analytics. If new website is being self-hosted, the IT contact will be providing Vision IT contact remote desktop access to the website.  If the current Vision website is self-hosted, the IT contact should provide remote desktop access to the web/database server or supply Vision with FileCenter/Database. Set up/provide SSL certificate, list of domains/subdomains. Firewall/Server access configuration.

Content & Assets Coordinator 

In order to assist your designated Project Manager, we recommend assigning a Content & Assets Coordinator. This person will be responsible for gathering all of the information & assets (text, photos, videos, logos, branding material etc.) that will be added to the website as part of the content migration and transmitting them to Vision. If needed, coordinate with departments and project manager on finalizing the content migration sitemap.

Billing Contact 

Responsibilities include receiving and processing invoices sent from Vision upon reaching a contracted payment milestone. They will also interface directly with Vision Accounts Receivable.

Teams

In addition to assigning the key roles, it’s also helpful to form committees incorporating additional stakeholders in the organization. Based on our experience, we recommend the following:

Core Project team (2-5 people)

The Core Project Team is the final decision-making group and managers of the project. This group commonly includes the following staff:

• Sign Off Decision Maker
• Project Manager
• Representatives from the following departments:
  • Administration
  • Communications
  • IT

Steering Committee/Stakeholders (varies)

This is a larger group with representatives from the organization intended to engage in the website implementation process. Involving them early can help build excitement about the project and eliminate any perception that any one department is driving the decisions. While their input will largely be used in the information gathering phase via surveys which is then brought back to the Core Project team. For final decisions, you should consider including them in discussions regarding content, design, and information architecture. The better the alignment amongst this group, the happier all members will be with the completed website. 

Role	Name(s)
Sponsor
Steering Committee
Sign-off decision maker
Project Manager
IT Contact
Content & Assets Coordinator
Billing Contact