Staffing a Team for Large Web Site Migration

How do you staff a large web site migration? In this blog post I'll review some of the roles needed in a migration. Remember, much of these suggestions are for a relatively large migration (and some of these roles may be ridiculous for small migrations). Also, there are many elements to planning a migration (see checklist), but I'll focus on staffing here. Note that the compelling vision is particularly important when talking about staffing, to make sure that you're aligning and motivating everyone.

Balancing Complexity and People

First, let's revisit the fact that there really is an interplay between the complexity (along with size) and the people required for the migration. This may seem obvious, but you often have a choice between putting your web site on a diet and the general resources needed. The focus of this blog post is on people, so just keep in mind that if some of these roles seem ridiculous then perhaps you just need to confirm that the complexity you are attempting is possible with the people you have on hand (as opposed to, as the diagram at right is showing, having more complexity than can be supported by the team).

Roles You'll Need

Here I'll concentrate on the staffing required for the migration itself, rather than the overall web team required for continuing to run the web as an ongoing undertaking (the migration is just a step in the long life of your web site). In general the migration will be a burst of effort, where people are brought in temporarily, but it is essential to keep the team needed for the ongoing support as well.

Also, I'll assume that the content strategists, information architects, (graphic) designers, taxonomist, system architects, and other people involved in the definition of the project have already defined what needs to be defined. Of course, they will still need to be available for issues that arise during the migration, but I'll assume that the overall structure has already been defined and it's time to get migrating. The policies and standards should have also been defined by the policies and standards teams so that the migration will occur consistently.

Note that the roles below are roles and not necessarily individuals. In other words, you might have one person playing multiple roles depending on the size of your migration. In addition, some of the roles below might not even be necessary for your migration.

Internal CMS Product Manager

You'll need someone to be managing the configuration / implementation of your CMS, and I would argue that you should have someone "internal" doing this (rather than, for example, you systems integrator). This product manager works with the various teams to ensure a high quality implementation and defines the product. One of the most tangible and high profile tasks they'll undertake is owning the feature request process. The best source for more information on this is this article on Internal CMS Product Management.

Liaisons and Coordinators

For very large projects, coordinating across large organizations, you need to think about how two-way communications will occur between the core infrastructure implementation team and the various units within your organization. For example, if you run a worldwide corporation, then there may be five different regions to work with and hundreds of users of the CMS. Obviously you're not going to have all the stake holders communicating directly with the developers. In a large organization, you could consider a model like this:

This type of model may seem (and be) overkill for your particular organization, but when you start having a hundred-plus people who will be involved in the migration, you may need:

• Liaisons on the technical team, who know the technology and can hand-hold the business users on how to get the system to do what they need it to do. Also, they can help work with the business users to understand any special requirements they may have.
• The business liaisons help prioritize all the requests and general issues that their business users are having in order to make sure that the most important items are getting taken care of.

Content Specialists

A site migration / revamp is usually an important time to improve the content. There's a good chance it is also necessary. For example, if you never had topics-based pages and are adding them now, then you'll probably need new content. Here I'll just list the different roles:

• Content Publishers. These are the folks that do the initial migration of content from the old system to the new (if it is not automated), and, depending on the tools and what you are trying to accomplish, doing HTML modifications/transformations or tagging. This role in particular may need to burst during the migration.
• Editors / Writers. Some content may largely be cut and pasted, in a fairly mechanical fashion. Other content needs to be written. Obviously, you need access to writers/editors for the web to do this work.
• Subject Matter Experts. During the migration, depending on what you are trying to accomplish, you will need access to your content subject matter experts. If your site is about the nuances of tax law, then you'll need access to your tax law experts.

Other roles

Some other roles need less description, although they are no less important. You should make sure to reflect on whether you need these roles in your migration:

• Project Manager. Although the CMS Product Manager may play this role, you may need to have a separate person looking specifically at keeping the project moving forward according to schedule and budget.
• Developers. Who exactly you need depends on what you're trying to accomplish and the tool you have, but you'll need developers (whether in-house or outsourced) for configuration/implementation of large sites.
• Help Desk. Unless the business liaisons can handle the various issues the CMS users raise, you will need to involve your helpdesk. The helpdesk may end up passing a large volume of the requests to the liaisons at the beginning until the patterns of requests are understood (and the helpdesk has the knowledge needed).
• Trainers. All the users need to be trained on how to use their system (for their particular task).
• Executive Sponsor. Someone high up in the food chain sponsoring the migration. In particular, they need to articulate the compelling vision of the migration.

Which do you need?

I've put a little spreadsheet together to help you keep track of which roles you already have, which you need, and which you won't need:

As always, I appreciate any comments you might have.