How Many People Work in Your Internet Department? 255
WorkinTooHard asks: "Two years ago, I took the job of Internet Marketing Manager for a international company, with a crazy idea that I could convince senior management that the internet wasn't a fad. The only problem was that I didn't expect a (respected) mid-level manager to be the road block. We are in the middle of a major website redesign (the current site has not been updated in over 8 years) and everyone is asking why it takes so long to complete, and almost daily I have to explain that I do not have enough manpower. Of course, I can't prove ROI until the new site is launched (a great Catch22). How many people do you have working in/on your company's Internet/Intranet and Extranet sites and applications? How many full-time web-application developers, content providers, analytics people, UI designers, email marketing people, and so forth?"
"Please note that this includes anyone who works directly in building and maintaining your companies current website, electronic marketing and Internet applications. If you can, include the size of your company, number of employess, the number of active products being sold/supported, and how much outsourcing you do? The company I am currently working for has over 13,000 active products and over 30,000 products which need to be supported. We do no outsourcing, have over 900 employess in North America (over 8000 worldwide) and a total of 2 full time web developers, 1 part time developer/SQL guru and 1 content/data person as well as two people in our MarCom office which periodically write copy."
Push Back (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that people don't understand, they tend to generalize and make higher level models of the underlying processes. I think it'd be beneficial for this manager to sit in on a couple design meetings and/or code reviews so that he can get a feel for all that is involved.
I think you're going to see wildly varying answers regarding sizes of teams, depending upon site complexity, etc. The real issue here is that it looks like you need to learn to push back.
Your posting sounds more like a distress message than an actual question. If you feel you're understaffed and you're feeling heat from the top, look these guys straight in the eye and say "If you refuse to offer more staff, we can only reasonably expect to complete around this date", and don't flinch. They'll respect you more in the long run and know you mean business.
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] -- Exercise, Web 2.0 style.
Re:Push Back (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a nice sentiment, except for one problem: He's a manager, not a coder. He doesn't need to push back, he needs to spend his time managing. Which means that instead of coding, he needs to spend his time doing other things like:
All in all, I don't hold very much hope for the story submitter. Being a manager is very different from being a programmer. If he's been in his position for two years and hasn't learned how to play the game yet, then he may not be cut out for it. Being a manager is a cut-throat business, and there are only two ways to survive: Either be really good, or be really good at brown nosing. The former is usually preferrable; especially if your bosses are no slouches.
Re:Push Back (Score:3, Insightful)
Like? Like pushing back. That's exactly what managers are for. They don't code, they push their agenda when and where it needs pushing.
I'll tell you, though, I've worked in a few places both big and small, and never experienced this problem. Most of the managers I've worked with, are all over the new paradigm of the Interwe
Re:Push Back (Score:5, Informative)
"I can't tell you when it will be finished until we know exactly what we're building. Help us nail down the specifications, and I'll be able to give you a finish date with the current staff and workload."
"There is a finite amount of manpower available to do this work, and the schedule I gave you is firm, unless we either add people -- and that won't be a one-to-one improvement, it will depend on how much work can be run in parallel -- or reduce scope. Help us do that, and I'll be able to get you a new completion date."
"I know you want these changes in the initial launch, and I want to give you these changes in the initial launch. However, there will be some impact to how long it will take, because a lot of work we've already completed will need to be redone. Help us nail down the new specifications, and I'll be able to give you a finish date with the current staff and workload."
Repeat ad nauseum until the project is finished.
Re:Push Back (Score:2)
What? What? Of course you can prove ROI before the new site is born. of course you can. What you can't do is provide ROI before the site is launched. YOUR JOB IS TO PROVE ROI BEFORE THE JOB EVEN STARTS!!! I can't believe you turn to us to say..."Yeah, bummer..." That's what you should be doing for a living. Right? Right???
Re:Push Back (Score:2, Interesting)
Pushing is a central part... (Score:3, Insightful)
He's a manager, not a coder. He doesn't need to push back, he needs to spend his time managing.
What do you think management is if it isn't "pushing"? This fellow is managing a major web development project, and resource allocation (resources being time, money and people) is an essential, unavoidable part of the process. Unless you are a "supreme manager" who answers to nobody, like a president or COO or something, then it is this guys job to estimate as accurately as possible what r
Re:Push Back (Score:3, Insightful)
Agree that it's a call for help. The writer should not be doing web development in house. He should have come up with a list of requirements, obtained quotations and time estimates, selected a contractor, signed a contract, and been done with this months ago.
He's using brute force where knowledge would be a better input. Classic.
Re:Push Back (Score:2)
Re:Push Back (Score:5, Informative)
Two cases in point:
1) My company (3 people) was hired to redesign the corporate website (twice) and build the entire employee intranet for a $300m/7,000 employee company. This client had a 60+ person web team in the corporate division alone, yet had to hire out to a tiny team of crack individuals to actually get anything done.
2) I'm working with another client now - smaller but much older - that would much rather have us (as the consulting firm) hire and manage the people we need for the project and pass the cost on to them (plus a markup) than hire internally.
I don't understand the accounting side enough to know what the benefits are there, but from a management perspective, it's very nice to be able to make a single "entity" responsible for the project (as kind of a black box) than to have to think about and deal with an internal "team".
Thank you for listening to
Re:Push Back (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Push Back (Score:2)
As another example, I know (first hand) about a large ($8bln) company that owns its own ships and stuff, but outsources its web work. It seems to be one of those things that companies "think" is outside of their core competency and so would rather farm it out like it's "rocket surgery" or something.
To another point my observation is that - web designers/developers - esp. good ones - tend to be independent minded f
Re:Push Back (Score:5, Informative)
They're called "recurring costs", and hiring outside consultants don't generate them while hiring employees do. Let's say you have to accomplish some project, and it's going to require roughly 1600 man hours to complete (three programmers working for three months, eight hour days). You don't have three programmers with enough time to dedicate to this project. So, you have two choices:
a) hire three guys
b) hire an outside firm to do the work
Finding and hiring three qualified programmers is going to take longer than finding one qualified firm, but even if it wasn't it's still cheaper to go with route b in this instance. Three programmers are going to cost you about $250,000 a year, give or take $50,000 depending on your market. So even if you spend $100 per hour on the outside firm, you're coming out ahead at only $160,000. Not to mention, once this project is done, if you go with route a, you're now stuck with three more employees, for whom you have to find something to do or else they're just going to get disgruntled and spend all day posting on Slashdot.
Re:Push Back (Score:2)
But this doesn't usually take into account that the people brought in by the contractor to do the job are usually less competent, and almost certainly less motivated to do a job they would be proud of. The working conditions lots of these contractors, especially the big ones, create, generate a lot of turnover ... mostly over.
You're far better off finding better ways to schedule and manage projects so you don't find yourself in a pinch one day with work for 6 people when you only have enough continuing wo
Re:Push Back (Score:5, Insightful)
By that time, the business is totally committed, the boss failed to hold the contractors to the contract, and the boss' boss is waiting for a deliverable. You could certainly cancel the contract, but that pretty much means loosing your job. Maybe they deserve to get fired.
I've never been a decision maker in a project like this, but I would say this happens more then half the time with businesses that I work with. Past schedule and over budget.
Re:Oh brother (Score:2)
Sometimes I helped to support the project, but I can't FORCE someone to check their email or voicemail. If someone doesn't read the email titled "Your CVS access" for 4 months and doesn't return my calls it's not really my fault.
WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Re:WTF (Score:2)
Re:WTF is an "Internet" department? (Score:2)
My guess is that the submitter has just realised the words "Internet" and "Management" are part of his title, has put 2 and 2 together, and now thinks he is responsible for managing the internet.
There is no reason given WHY the "respected roadblock" is sitting in his way. There is no reason given WHY a crudely estimated ROI can't be offer
The sad state of affairs... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why being a project manager at any level can suck at times. What I learned over the years is either to make do with what you got or just walk away because some projects aren't worth sacrificing your time and effort.
Think like a businessman (Score:2, Interesting)
You need to make a reasonable educated guess based on similar implementations. Talk to people who have done similar projects for similar companies and get their actual ROI numbers. Take a good look at that, then guess. That should help with the justification.
Oh, and to answer your question -- there's 1 in our company.
Error (Score:2)
Use an iterative approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats the business? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who are your customers? are they interent users?
Re:Whats the business? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the business? (Score:5, Funny)
True story: I worked for a tech company with a website created in notepad in 10 minutes because someone was bored one day. Most of the information on it was obsolete.
One day the CEO emailed excitedly to say he'd updated it... turns out he'd joined AOL and got some kind of web site design package - he'd produced a single text page with blue text on an orange background.
And spelled the name of the company wrong.
We left it a week before quietly correcting some of the more horrendous faults (it wasn't even standard HTML.. heck I'm not sure what it was to this day).
It took another 2 years before that company got somewhat of a clue... true, their new site is a Flash/ActiveX monster, but it's progress at least.
Re:Whats the business? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you have that backwards
Going from Flash / Active X the notepad I what I would call progress.
password needed (Score:2)
That's what lean management is all about.
Re:Whats the business? (Score:2)
Re:Whats the business? (Score:2)
No but their peronsal information is on the internet on public forums. Oh wait... I don't think I was supposed to disclose that.
1 Person (Score:2)
Now, our intranet site(s) take the time of several IS people, but no one is dedicated full time to those services. But intranet and internet web development are two different beasts.
You have four choices.... (Score:2, Interesting)
1) convince your trouble maker and turn him into an ally and use him as a buffer against those above him.
2) convince those above him what's right|wrong and leave your immediate troublemaker in the cold.
3) continue to bang your head against the the wall until you reach brain or they send you out the door with a patch of skull missing.
4) You realize this is an intractable situation and high-tail it out of there while you still have the ability to do so on your own terms.
There are subtle nuances, but
Re:You have four choices.... (Score:2)
I'm constantly amazed by the tendancy of Slashdotters to just cut and run in the face of adversity. Quiting one job just because you don't get along with every single person in the organization is not a winning strategy cause, guess what?, you're not always going to get along with everyone. Try to be positive and
Re:You have four choices.... (Score:2)
I'm constantly amazed by the tendancy of Slashdotters to just cut and run in the face of adversity. Quiting one job just because you don't get along with every single person in the organization is not a winning strategy cause, guess what?, you're not always going to get along with everyone. Try to be positive and find ways to work with the situation, not against it.
There's a difference between not getting along with anyone and not being able to perform your job function because people refuse to help you
Beautiful, beautiful bureaucracy (Score:2)
So... it's entirely irrelevant if the upper-level managers approve something, because they aren't the ones implementing it. If the middle managers aren't on board, you might as well kiss your project goodbye. You either need to convince him directly (kiss ass) or have his boss(
How about a Demo? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How about a Demo? (Score:2)
If said manager isn't supporting it because he/she thinks they're taking too long, a demo might make him/her think they're already done with the project, and in a couple of days it should be up.
Re:How about a Demo? (Score:2)
This is not a DIY project (Score:3, Informative)
Triply so if it's been 8 years.
Just enough (Score:2)
ROI? That's impossible... (Score:5, Interesting)
A web site (as simple or complex as it may be) is a marketing tool for a business. And anyone with an MBA or equivalent experience will tell you that developing an ROI on a marketing campaign is nearly impossible, at best.
As for "how many" developers it's going to take... Check out today's story, 60% Of Windows Vista Code To Be Rewritten [slashdot.org], which has some great advice about how to get 9 women pregnant and have a baby in 1 month. (Or was that "getting 5 Jazz players pregnant"? I don't remember...)
Re:ROI? That's impossible... (Score:3, Informative)
Do I have some customers? Did they find me becasue of my sign? there is your base for an ROI.
Of course, no one did it because it was pretty obvious you needed a sign.
For a web site, yiour ROI is generated traffic, as well as removing costs from other places of business. For example, can a support web site save you money in man power? telco costs? Does it have a marketing value? Does it have a sale value?
That like saying yu ca't get some ROI number friom a tv commercial, which you can.
Re:ROI? That's impossible... (Score:2, Informative)
I think your understanding of ROI is a little narrow....Yes, in many cases it boils down to who bought your product in the long run but it's not always
burn out. (Score:5, Funny)
currently I'm creating a custom ticketing system for our call center, I've been given 10 days, to design, develop and roll out the application. Needless to say some of what I have to do is hacked together.
and now all of my complaining leads on a question.
What do you do when you feel burnt out at work?
Personally, I've started drinking during lunch, not the best thing, but it seems to help.
Somebody else said it... (Score:2)
You'll find a lot more of your time is spent marketing yourself (about 40%, in my case), but that has been a good learning experience for me, and thus, feel like I've moved forward.
And you'll also find yourself having to chase down payments occasionally. That's probably the only real downside of it. It's not pleasant.
Re:burn out. (Score:4, Funny)
Personally, I've started drinking during lunch, not the best thing, but it seems to help.
Start hiring hookers during lunch with petty cash instead. Getting your pipes cleaned will make you a lot more productive that afternoon than getting drunk.
Fry's? (Score:4, Funny)
I always thought Fry's web site looked like their web staff was pretty much one guy.
With a drinking problem.
lone wolf at my state agency (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm the lone developer in my state agency's "website department". We have over 250 employees and huge information publishing needs. Like the submitter, we are in the midst of a website redesign using a commercial CMS. A county spent 6 months with a staff of four programmers to build their site with the newer version of this software. I was asked to do it in 3 months by myself. I'm spending entire weekends and nights in my cubicle coding this thing in JSP. No overtime pay. It's a month past deadline and if I don't finish it by the end of next week, I'm fired.
Morale to this story: working for the government sucks as much as people say it does.
Seth
Re:lone wolf at my state agency (Score:2)
(I used to work for a state university. Academia can be as bad as working for the state, especially when your university is run by the state. Worst of both worlds.)
If I were you, I'd throw together a couple of mockups and spend the rest of the time interviewing.
Re:lone wolf at my state agency (Score:5, Insightful)
Life's too short, and no job is worth that.
Re:lone wolf at my state agency (Score:3, Insightful)
> It's a month past deadline and if I don't finish it by the end of next week, I'm fired
I'm sorry to say that you should spend the next week sending out resumes instead of putting in unpaid overtime.
An organization that abuses you that badly today will do it again tomorrow. Try to get a gig where they abuse you only during regular work hours.
If you have moral objections to that recommendation (after all, when I was in the same position as you, I ignored the same advice...), you should focus your e
Re:lone wolf at my state agency (Score:2)
I'm sorry to say that you should spend the next week sending out resumes instead of putting in unpaid overtime.
Seconded. Also, stop working overtime - you want to be fresh for your interviews. If it were me (and I'm an evil bastard), I'd take longer lunches away from the crowd so they think I'm interviewing. Even better if I am.
Re:lone wolf at my state agency (Score:5, Informative)
I call bullshit. It's incredibly difficult to fire state employees, and given that there's documented evidence of a similar organization taking 8 times the resources to complete the same project, there's no way you can get fired for this from a large corporation, let alone the state.
If your manager has literally threatened you with termination over this, stop working on the project and go directly to your HR department, do not pass GO. Tell them about your stress (it helps if you have a doctor's note or, even better, a note from Epstein's muttah, stating that you're under immense stress and borderline to a breakdown) and make sure they know you've been threatened with termination for not doing what four people couldn't. You'll be surprised at how fast they move to make sure you're taken care of.
0.5 (Score:2)
Granted, that's just for our in-house apps.
Our public website has, and I kid ye not, an entire department with a director. As well they should, because it's a million hit a day website. It helps to be a grant funded non-profit in that regard.
Marketing (Score:2)
Fortunatly, what Marketing thing and what is actually happening is two different things. Content and functionality are being pushed over flash (both the Macromedia flash and general website bling.)
We've out sorced the web development to a sister company in our orginization which happens to do web services. In house the ITS Mana
Classic Blunder (Score:3, Interesting)
It sounds like you have made the classic mistake of ripping out and replacing something that worked simply because you wanted to do something better. That's almost always a bad idea without buy in from the highest levels.
Sure, the old site is crufty, but it is paid for, and the stuff you are doing is not. If you don't have the political pull to spend money at will it is almost a better plan to find minor changes that can be done inexpensively but that yield proportionally large benefits. Once you have a few visible "successes" under your belt then you can start trying to change the world. Until then, promising the moon without being able to deliver is simply a full-proof way to fail. If you have undertaken a project that you can not complete with your current staff and management is starting to question the viability of your project then you probably had better start thinking about plan B. Plan B probably should not include "industry statistics."
Seriously, you need to deliver something. Not complain about needing more help.
Re:Classic Blunder (Score:2)
Since you don't think that the management is committing anywhere near the necessary resources to this project, suggest shutting it down. The worst case scenario is to fritter away resources that could be better spent doing something useful and yet never having anything to show for it.
If they agree, there you go, problem solved. Seriously.
If they don't agree, take
Why Was He Given A "Manager" Role? (Score:3, Informative)
Your Sim is miserable in his apartment. He has a crappy TV that doesn't make him very happy. You are confident that a big plasma TV would make him much happier and thus he'd work harder, get promoted, and earn far more than the cost of the TV back.
Sensible person's approach: Earn what you can. Upgrade the TV for a slightly better one. Earn faster with the better TV. Upgrade once you can. Repeat until you have the plasm
Re:Classic Blunder (Score:2)
Re:Classic Blunder (Score:2)
I needed that, thanks.
Just The One... (Score:2)
Bob
incremental change (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like reason #65536 to never launch a "major redesign" of anything....
Isn't there some way this could be broken down into steps that could show actual day-to-day improvements (even if only very minor ones?)?
Just little ole me... (Score:2)
Re:Just little ole me... (Score:2)
Re:Just little ole me... (Score:2)
"Two years ago, I took the job of Internet Marketing Manager"
"the current site has not been updated in over 8 years"
We could debate the state of the art in web site development 8 years ago and ask whether or not your system is similarly aged, but I think it is fairly clear from the context above that saying "you did not write it correctly" is perhaps a bit unfair.
you're woefully understaffed (Score:2, Informative)
Here are some comparisons from my recent past. Currently, I'm the only tech guy, and I do everything. But that's because I just left my last job to found a start up
Prior to that, I was one of three developers in a department that also had a designer, a writer, and a project manager. That was to service an organization of ~1,100 people. Some departments also had their own techish p
Duh. (Score:2)
Just tell them to f**k off. You only report to one person. Worry about what they think.
Road Block (Score:2)
A mid-level manager has a lot of people above him. When are you ready to go to his boss and point out that this person is preventing you from getting your job done?
Wiresquire's law: (Score:2)
It's an indicator that there may be cultural change management issues and/or you haven't sold people on an idea/project.
In your case it may not harm to do a little status to let people know where you are. You do have a project plan, and are tracking towards completion, right?
If you are so understaffed, it should have been apparent at the start of the project. And the time for the project to be
Backwards (Score:2)
We will book $XX sales this year through our website.
We will generate XX,XXX new leads through out website.
We will eliminate XX positions in Human Resources by providing information to our employees.
We will increase stockholder satisfaction with our shareholder communications through improvement of our website.
If you were an architect and the company h
Totally Dependant (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, it comes down to:
1. Understanding of the final product or content
2. How much you interconnect with backend data providers, and if you require filtering.
3. Your team's experience in the language and dev environment
4. The speed at which those languages lend towards the final development.
Note about languages -
My experience is that Java is by FAR a slower dev environment than PHP, Perl or Ruby. The whole compile cycle and the complexities of app servers make for a much more complicated project. The exception to this is JSP - which comes closer to Perl - but entails it's own complexities in getting at databases, etc... Plus, java makes no wins in uptime, speed, or clustering compared to Perl (utilizing mod-perl), or PHP.
Yes, I have been on the large person java team that architected the connections between the three largest online travel providers - don't whine at me.
Re:Totally Dependant (Score:2)
One...me (Score:2)
If you have a GOOD developer, good organization and all the content pregenerated... 1-3 months should be all thats needed (even for an enterprise company).
The exception would be a complete re-org, business redesign as well but again, with good organization and a good framework, it should be very straight forward.
Is hiring the answer? (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, a programmer or designer is pretty flexible. After the site is done they could work on other projects, update manuals, internal programs, media kits, etc. But what would, for example, a UI designer do? I'd also shy away from having an "email marketing manager" because almost all the professional marketing emails I get are usually handled by a company that's not the one advertising everything.
Of course, a couple of things need to be noted. First off, if they have not updated their site in 8 years and the internet is vital, how come they are still in business? Who are some competitors with a terrific web presence and how has that affected their business? I've seen plenty of cases where a very high investment has not really resulted in any new business. Or, the new business can't be tied to the site, eventhough the site is generating new business. (Build this into your proposal so if there's an increase, it can be directly attributed to the project you spearheaded!)
I have a friend who is a procurement specialist for a pretty big consultancy, with clients being a lot of Fortune 500 companies. Anytime he needs to compare commoditized products or services (say, plastic sheeting, wires) he always has a very big list of companies to contact. The easiest way he cuts that down from 100 companies to 30 or 40 is by eliminating ones with bad or non-existent websites. To an extent, it is a reflection of the professionalism and thoroughness of any company.
That being said, if your employer is afraid of new ideas, doesn't want to understand them, and doesn't see the benefit if a clear, realistic plan to great ROI is laid out in front of them, that company is a sinking ship. It that's the case, it wouldn't hurt to take your good idea and see if a competitor will do it instead (with you overseeing the project at a vastly higher salary, of course).
I'm suspicious... (or, paranoid?) (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time I see something like the text quoted, (and this is the 3rd time in about as many weeks that I've seen such questions here -- not to attack the Slash Staff, btw...) I feel like it's a probe question. I wonder if it's well-crafted and paid for so that the readers get all riled up and reply. Like the people with nicknames, but personal web pages. You then go on to say how many MySQL devs, and so on you have, trying to help out this guy. For all you know, it could be post-worthy by Slashdot staff standards, but the poster or piece-writer could be looking for sales avenues leading to sales revenues.
Some of you guys out to be wary of being "taggable" while disclosing what products you use. You never know: that could be Oracle or ms digging for treasure. If your company is susceptible to discounts and promises of upgrades and marketing dollars, YOU could be out of a job if they replace YOUR tool of choice...
Just some thoughts...
Don't do ROI. (Score:3, Informative)
The trick is not to do ROI - instead you do risk analysis of not undertaking the project.
You mention that the current site is 8 years out of date. In your risk analysis, state that prospective clients that view the website will see that information is outdated and will look elsewhere. This qualifies as a cataclysmic severity since it means no inbound customers (as they are more attracted to some webpage that is moderatly up to date.)
Just remember one change you have to make in your risk analysis: s/risk/certainty/g.
If the manager insists on ROI, head to the advertising department and ask them for their figures. As you know, a website is merely another way of advertising, and no advertising means no business - in fact, advertsing may give you advise on working around your roadblocks as necessary (or otherwise work on your behalf.)
Dozen or so (Score:2)
It would be like asking someone at Amazon how many people work on the website. Maybe only a subset of the entire company actually works directly for the
how many? (Score:2)
Answer to the question: (Score:2)
Maybe you shouldn't try to redesign it (Score:2)
Maybe you shouldn't try to redesign it. With a good roadmap plan of where you want to get to, incremental changes can you there. maybe you're trying to bite off too much in one go? I've seen many a company website turn into a disaster because of that. In one case the webmaster of the site got all angry and blamed it on my browser, on Linux, on my ISP, etc. When I talked on the phone to a sales guy, he agreed that the web site sucked and he had to use the paper catalog for everything (and he used Window
sure! (Score:2)
yes 2.
Just Me (Score:2)
I manage all the IT stuff.
I've been trying to run the website for years. By "trying", I mean I virtually have to hold a gun to my boss' head to get him to help write product literature for the site. (The new version of our relatively small website has been in development for over a year for this very reason.)
We are diffused into the company (Score:2)
We are actually in the process of taking a "Web Team" of 7 people and diffusing it into the Communications department as a whole. We were a cohesive group dedicated t
many jobs ~ 2 people (Score:2)
Worker one:
General Manager, html/photoshop/illustrator production, product photographer, global administrivia manager, web reporting, banner development, way too much more to list.
Worker two (me):
Developer, Technical Manager, DBA, e-mail campaign executor, project manager for outsourced work, manage SEO and keyword purchases, occasional copywriter and all-around shortstop.
Mostly possible from a bunch of homegrown text-file and DB-based content management tools.
For the record,
If it helps - (Score:2)
You'll never have enough to do the job. It's up to you (and your personality / work ethic) whether or not you make the job work.
its tough, but doable (Score:2)
How was he able to change that? starting from inside. He joined forces with a developer to customize
Don't be a wuss (Score:4, Insightful)
I got into the same deal, but with a much larger monster of an organization, with lots of developers, thousands of servers, and endless financial resources. Here's what I learned: two passionate and committed coders with a clear understanding of their company's business and customers can produce more than an army of egos, project managers, analysts, disengaged sponsors.
I suggest you pick a target that the two of you can hit in 30 days, communicate that goal to your boss's boss, bust your asses to hit the target in 20 days, then spend the next 10 days figuring out your next 30 day trick. Rinse and repeat.
As you complete these little projects, you will A) gain the trust and confidence of the guys with the money, and B) increase your own confidence in your team's abilities. Yes, there will be bugs and system-wide FUps, but that's the price of playing the game with 2 guns in a 4x6 cube.
With time you will learn to identify the low-risk opportunities for investments, where the ROI is high and the time to execute is low. Some of these investments might be adding new features, others may be in hiring a new person. Management will come to respect your judgment.
The point is to run your shop like your own business and spend your time and money as if it were your own. If you're not making money for the company, and seeking ways to make even more, then they don't need you. Yes, having a few more people sounds appealing, but you need to have a direction to send them first.
What? (Score:2)
SAY IT ISN'T SOOOOOOOO!!!
Hey Middle Management! (Score:2)
Employees don't provide ROI. Management does. Deal with it.
Only way to be sure.... (Score:2)
Seriously, maybe a company that got by with an 8 year old web site needs a 24.99 web template and about 6 pages saying where it is, who they sell to, a phone #, an email address, and job openings.
If you are doing business fine now, you don't NEED a web site.
Or take a different tack, make the site a place for customers to self-order or check status and make it plain jane. Your target audience is long gone by no
How Many People Work in Your Internet Department? (Score:2, Insightful)
None now (Score:2)
Everyone (Score:2)
Oh, did I mention that I work at the Mozilla Corporation?
Anywhere between... (Score:2)
So yeah, it is worrisome.
Data (Score:2)
Qualified? (Score:2)
Huh?! (Score:2)
About 0.25 (Score:3, Insightful)
The website development and graphics are all contracted out. Only the content is developed in-house, by a scientific writer, so that we can be sure that it is both correct and well written. We can't ask web developers to check the content. I assume the legal department also checks it for any statements that various regulatory authories might object against. (Or adding SEC-required disclaimers etc.) I think that this in itself is a good model.
The biggest potential problem that I see is a tendency of upper management to try to influence detail design, and their unfortunate tendency towards glitz: Flash animations, rolling menus, ticker bars, high-resolution graphics, and the like. These might consume a lot of time and money and only rarely contribute to a good website. (One of the few happy exceptions I have seen is Nikon's microscopy training website [microscopyu.com], which is great.) But my personal preference would be for a site that is styled in a minimalistic way, light and fast.
Two questions for management (Score:3, Interesting)
2) Based on #1, ask for resources based on apparent priority.
If they do not meet your requests for item #2, kill the project. Otherwise it will just drag on as a zombie and suck your life away.
To kick start the project, try to find an upper manager who is enthusiastic about the project. In project management lingo this is called a 'sponsor'. This person will politic with the rest of management to keep the project alive, a high priority and lobby for money.
If you cannot find a sponsor, kill the project. Use your budget and personnel where they can have an impact, not on a zombie project.