A website project needs one person inside the business who gathers answers, content and feedback, and can approve agreed things alone. Name them, give them protected time, and write down what they can decide without the owner.

Waiting on the business

A new website project starts well. The first meeting is full of ideas, the design is approved, and the web company sends a list of what it needs: page text, photographs, prices, answers to a dozen questions.

Three weeks later, half the list is still open. The questions have been forwarded around the office, the photographs are on somebody's phone, and the prices are waiting for the owner.

Nothing is wrong with the design or the code. The project has stalled on information only the business has, and nobody inside the business has the job of getting it.

Everybody is involved. Nobody is responsible.

Where projects actually stall

The fourth does the most damage. Five sets of comments arriving separately leave the web company to choose between them, and whichever it chooses, somebody feels overruled and the round starts again.

Why it falls to nobody

The owner usually starts as the contact, and is also the busiest person in the business. Answers wait for evenings that never come free.

Staff are often willing but have no authority. They can collect the questions, but not settle the prices, the wording of a guarantee, or which services to feature.

And the website is nobody's actual job. It sits on top of everyone's real work, so it gets done in the gaps, and in a busy season there are none.

Name one person

The fix is to give the project an owner inside the business: one person who gathers the answers, the text and the photographs, and is the web company's single point of contact.

It does not have to be the owner, and often works better if it is not. It should be somebody who knows the business well, writes clearly, gets replies from colleagues, and will still be there in three months.

Tell everyone else who it is. Comments, photographs and ideas go to that person, not straight to the web company.

Name a backup as well, for holidays and sick days, so the project does not stop whenever its owner is away.

Give them time

Naming someone without changing their week achieves little. The project becomes one more thing on top of a full job, and it slips in exactly the same way.

Agree a few hours a week that belong to the website while the project runs, and put them in the calendar. Take something else off their list for those weeks if necessary.

A project with a few protected hours a week moves steadily. One squeezed into lunch breaks moves when somebody remembers.

Decide what they can approve alone

The project's owner needs to know which decisions are theirs. Without that, every choice waits for the business owner, and the bottleneck simply moves.

Write it down. Page text, photographs, layout details and the order of pages might be theirs to approve. Prices, guarantees, anything legal, the budget and the launch date might stay with the owner.

Agree, too, who has the final word when the project's owner and a manager disagree about a page.

The exact line matters less than having one. A short list agreed at the start saves dozens of "I'll check and get back to you" replies later.

A worked example

A regional trucking company with about forty drivers commissioned a new site last spring, mainly to recruit drivers and to explain its freight services to shippers.

The owner was the contact. The dispatch manager, the safety manager and the office manager each sent comments separately, and the recruiting page went through four rounds because two of them wanted different requirements listed.

By the autumn the site was finished except for its text, and the project had stopped.

The owner then handed the project to the office manager, with Tuesday mornings set aside for it.

She could approve everything except pay rates and the wording about the safety record, which went to the owner and the safety manager once each.

Comments now went to her, she settled the contradictions before passing them on, and the site launched seven weeks later.

One list of feedback

Feedback works best as one consolidated list per round, sent by the project's owner, with contradictions already settled.

Each item should say what to change and, where it matters, why. "Make it pop" is a feeling; "make the phone number larger, because older customers call" is an instruction.

Agree a turnaround too, such as three working days for each round, so the project's pace is set by the calendar rather than by whoever is least busy.

What a good web company will ask for

This is not a burden the business carries alone. A well-run project starts with the web company asking who its contact is, what they can approve, and how quickly answers will come.

The web company keeps its side too: a clear list of what it needs and by when, questions asked in batches rather than one at a time, and drafts sent in a form busy people can review quickly.

A short weekly check-in, even fifteen minutes by phone, stops small questions from piling up into a stall.

If nobody raises ownership at the start, raise it yourself. It is the cheapest way to keep a project on schedule.

The counter-case

Some businesses are small enough that the question answers itself.

A sole proprietor owns the project by default. The advice then shrinks to two parts: block the time in the calendar, and decide in advance which choices can be made quickly.

Very small jobs, such as a single new page, may not need a formal arrangement at all, only a clear deadline for the text.

For anything larger, the advice holds: one named person inside the business, with time and clear authority.

Before the project starts

  1. Name the project's owner inside the business.
  2. Tell everyone else who it is.
  3. Block protected hours in their calendar.
  4. Write down what they approve alone.
  5. List what stays with the business owner.
  6. Agree a turnaround for each feedback round.
  7. Collect the logins before the first meeting.

Step four keeps the project moving, because a named person who must ask permission for everything is only a messenger, and the project still waits on the owner.

Giving that person the original purpose of the site to work from is covered in what your website was supposed to do.

Frequently asked questions

Why do website projects stall?

Usually not on design or code, but waiting for text, photographs, answers and approvals that only the business can provide, when nobody inside it has that job.

Should the owner be the main contact?

Not necessarily. The owner is often the busiest person in the business. Someone who knows it well, writes clearly and gets replies from colleagues often works better.

How much time does the project owner need?

A few protected hours a week while the project runs, set in the calendar. Squeezed into lunch breaks, the work slips exactly as it did before.

What can the project owner approve alone?

Whatever you write down at the start, typically page text, photographs, layout details and page order. Prices, guarantees, legal wording, budget and launch date often stay with the owner.

How should feedback reach the web company?

As one consolidated list per round from the project's owner, with contradictions settled first and each item saying what to change and why.

What if I run the business alone?

Then you own the project by default. Block time for it in the calendar and decide in advance which choices you will make quickly.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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