sample report

The following report was generated entirely with planaproject:

 

the report

Introduction
Commissioning specialist designers and programmers isn’t really any different to commissioning any other specialist to work for you. The key is to provide as clear a brief as possible about the factors surrounding the project and the likely or desired results. It is often possible to do this with a one or two line description of the project but depending on complexity there may still be several hoops to jump over before you get to the finish line.

The following report is designed to help you understand these hoops and the outline costs/considerations for each phase of development.

Scope of project
This is an exciting time for {the company} to be redesigning or creating its online presence. It is estimated that there are now over 33m people online in the UK and 445m throughout the rest of the world and the sweep of technological change is still accelerating through business processes and our lives at home. It is forecast that the numbers of UK users will increase to over 52m by 2005 and £25bn will be generated annually - in the UK alone. The aim of the {project name) project is to overhaul, or create from scratch, the company website and any or all parts our inter-connecting systems, to increase sales, improve communications and reduce direct sales and support costs.

Briefing document
A draft of the briefing document has been prepared and is available online at www.quantos.co.uk/briefbuilder.asp?action={reference}.

Technical issues
To date all known technical issues have been addressed and and will be taken into account accordingly.

Scope and type of content
It is thought that the site is likely to involve only a moderate number of pages, probably between 25 and 75, but with some extended functionality such as a simple search capability or a simple product order form (ecommerce capability). Projects of this size still involve careful planning at the design and research stages to make sure all the key issues and selling points have been addressed and to ensure that any dynamic content really hits the spot with your audience.

Third part suppliers
At this stage it is thought that the project would benefit from full external project management including project consultancy and ongoing maintenance. Typically this will involve us handing over the agreed briefing parameters to The Quantos Consultancy who will liaise with all parties and manage each stage of the process with full participation from and reporting to all members of the project team. This has the advantage of ensuring that all recommendations are as impartial as possible and weighted towards the overall benefit of the organization as a whole. The Quantos Consultancy can provide a fully independent consultant to manage this process for us at day rates of between £500 and £750 per day or part thereof and with no minimum charge. This compares favourably to the market as a whole and very well against dedicated agencies who typically charge £75 to £150 per hour.


Phase by phase development

the recommended approach for this project is to take one phase at a time working towards and from the agreed project brief (see briefing document above).

The usual phases involved include:

1. initial research/concept work
2. visual/technical development
3. production and programming
4. content development/management
5. final amends and publishing

Of course, this projects could involve more or less phases than this and not every phase may be required even though it is assumed that each stage has been either approved or waivered before works commences on the next.

For this project it is anticipated that the following phases will be required:

Phase 1. Initial concept work/research
The first priority, once any initial research has been completed, is to begin to explore the content, navigation and user accessibility options as well as the visual look and feel for the project. Tactical considerations are also important (eg the importance of search capabilities or performance on search engines) as well comparison with other peer-group findings from your research. We usually recommend developing three alternative visual/feature-set directions that can be presented as flat boards/visuals for group-wide discussion and comparison or used in focus group activities. These are usually worked up in sufficient detail to get an accurate impression of the overall concept and navigation issues but won’t include any interactivity. User interactivity is looked at in detail at the next stage. The initial budget for this stage of this project is £ {x}.

Phase 2. Visual/Tech development
Phase 2 is for concentrating on the development of the chosen route from Phase 1 into the specifics of the final solution and details required before full production begins in earnest. It is recommended that we produce full working mock-ups, in the form of interactive, on-screen graphics and that we also produce detailed technical specifications so that all the key aspects of the project can be seen and tested in a live environment. Draft copy will be required at this stage for the key pages to be featured. Mock-ups aren’t usually provided in the final publishing media as this begins in the next stage. The recommended initial budget for stage 2 of this project is £ {x}.

Phase 3. Production and programming
On approval of stage 2 the project normally moves straight into full production and programming. By this stage you will have approved of – in a straight-line – a) the outline goals for the project (in the briefing document), b) the overall creative approach / direction (in Phase 1) and c) the exact functionality / details of each key page / function in Phase 2. During this phase, final templates and programming are begun in earnest and the full shape of the project begins to take form. There will likely be a number of development pages ready for viewing at different times (on our development server) and you will have completed draft copy and some final copy for most of the project. It is thought that these pages will largely consist of carefully crafted (coded) pages, bespoke images with some graphic development. The costs of this stage are partly incorporated in phases 1 and 2 (see cost summary above) but includes £x as an additional variable cost to cover the more advanced nature of the pages and programming.

Phase 4. Content populating
The penultimate stage of this project is the acquisition, management and approval of content – which can be a major cost if not handled correctly. For this project it is thought that substantial changes to the content are not likely and that the content should develop only modestly from Phase 3. This means that we have allowed for changes to up to 20% of the content from the start of this phase until the end of it. This allowance does not include any changes to any of the navigational components or the functionality as these can be expensive to administer at this stage and for this reason it recommended that these are all signed-off over the previous two stages. The cost of content population and management for this project is partly incorporated in phases 1 and 2 (the base cost) but £x is included as part of the variable costs to cover these modest changes.

Phase 5. Final amends / publishing
The last phase of the development involves the final amends, testing, de-bugging and publishing to the final production environment. It is thought that this project is likely to require minor amends only (changes to less than 2.5% of the final content) but plenty of time should be allowed for the developers to test the final product in a variety of situations before final publishing. The estimated cost of this stage is partly incorporated in phases 1 and 2 (the base cost) but includes an extra variable cost of £x to reflect the minor level of final amends anticipated.

Project Management
It is thought that this project will require a limited amount of project management support from outside. The Quantos Consultancy can provide an independent project manager for us at day rates of between £320 and £400 per day or part thereof and with no minimum charge. For a limited amount of support this estimate has added 10% of the base costs to cover this: £x on current estimates.

Disbursements
It is understood that the extra costs (disbursements) for this project shall be fairly light and restricted to out of pocket expenses, photocopies and travel expenses etc. Therefore a disbursements budget of 2.5% of base costs (£x) is recommended for the project.

Support and Maintenance
This project is thought to require extensive outside maintenance and support and a budget is recommended of £250 per month, which is 5 incidents/hours per month. Support calls are charged at £50 per incident (or hour if longer) and all calls are logged and available at all times from www.quantos.co.uk. Unused support can be rolled forward for any other purpose and additional hours are billed at the same £50 per incident/hour (whichever the lesser). All support work is billed quarterly in advance.

Hosting
Depending on projected bandwidth usage Quantos can provide a collocation, professional hosting solution from £75 per quarter including usage, tracking and management statistics. Usage data is provided by market leader WEBCEO is available in realtime (no waiting around for today’s/yesterday’s data).