Collaborative Web Development: Strategies and Best Practices for Web Teams [Paperback]

Jessica Burdman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201433311 | ISBN-13: 978-0201433319 | Publication Date: October 1, 1999

In Collaborative Web Development, author Jessica Burdman shares the successful secrets of managing a web project, including collaboration, communication, and budgeting. The book provides many case studies of both successful and unsuccessful Web sites, and will help web-project managers pick and manage their web teams so they can sell their projects and needs to executive managers. The ultimate goal of this book is to make a "level playing ground," offering a similar vocabulary for developers, marketing people, and IT managers, so everyone is "bought in" to the Web project.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In her introduction to Collaborative Web Development: Strategies and Best Practices for Web Teams, author Jessica Burdman quotes industry leaders as saying, "Web development is crazy." Throughout the remainder of the book, Burdman breaks the process of Web development down to manageable chunks and offers techniques to help you successfully complete Web projects without pulling your hair out.

This isn't a book about development tools or programming languages--it's a user manual to the process of managing site development from conception to completion. The focus is on team development since almost all such projects of any scale involve a diverse collection of professionals. Brief interviews with seasoned team leaders add real-world perspective to the topic.

Burdman provides frameworks for analyzing both the project at hand and the team you have at your disposal. She tackles the process with a discussion of getting the project off the ground in an organized and complete manner. The material here is presented in plain English instead of with the usual heavy emphasis on flowcharts and management theory. She also doesn't stop with the summary of a single project cycle but covers client issues, team communication, and ongoing team cultivation as well. This book may not make all your projects go smoothly, but it will sure help. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Project scope definition, cost budgeting, team assembly, content planning, team and client communication, client education, quality assurance and testing, team evolution, and case studies.

From the Inside Flap

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
- W. Edward Deming

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana (1863-1952)

Over the two years that it has taken to conceptualize and write this book, many people have asked me what inspired me to write about Web development, and why is this book different from the many other books out there on the bookshelves? This book doesnit offer a single-minded solution to the myriad of problems and issues that Web developers face. Itis not a solution in a box, or an "Idiotis Guide" to anything. Itis naive to assume that it would be possible to offer the single solution for Web development because of the many kinds of Web applications that exist: entertainment-based, information-based, commerce, or advertising. What this book does contain is a treasure of ideas, methods, devices, tips, advice, stories, and even a CD-ROM full of useful templates and tools to help you develop the Web team and Web development systems that best suit your environment and project objectives. Who Should Read This Book?

This book is for a project manager or producer, or anyone who is responsible for putting together a Web team. It will help you understand what you need to know to build the right team for the project. It will also help you understand the Web development cycle, the issues you face with clients, be they internal or external to your business. This book will help you understand the costs involved in Web development, time lines, phases, and cycles so that you can create a process that suits your team and the needs of a specific project. The figure that follows this Preface will give you a "picture" of the bookis organization. Heading toward Sanity

Why did I write this book? Many reasons. I had produced more than 20 Web-related projects and at least half of them seemed akin to torture. Through conferences and networking I developed a circle of friends and colleagues who were creating Web sites: the production manager at Cisco; the managing editor of the Miami Herald, the vice president of Snap! Online; producers at Red Sky, Novo|Ironlight Interactive, Ikonic/USWeb, and CKS Partners; and project managers at Netscape, Microsoft, and the Servinet Consulting Group. They were all saying the very similar things: "Web development is crazy." "Web projects are death-march projects." "I need to take three months off to recover."

I began to develop a theory that the central problem with Web development is the lack of clear standards or methods for creating Web sites. There are many kinds of sites and applications. The people who are building Web sites today come from many backgrounds. On e-business sites, I worked with software engineers, security experts, information designers. In advertising, I met brand stewards, copywriters, graphic designers.

Each kind of site required a certain team and a certain methodology. There existed good practices that I could use from my e-business background, but they needed to be modified to fit with the needs of the team and the project. To try to enforce processes without the teamis buy-in meant certain project failure.

This book contains interviews with people from the following fields: software development, advertising, multimedia, film, publishing, teaching, and writing. It shows how and why we, as Web project managers and developers, must create methodologies and standards for developing Web applications. Not every suggestion I offer will work for you; your organization will have to decide what works best for its Web team. But, it's important to work toward developing methods that your entire team supports, understands, and wants to use.

When you can do that, and when you are able to articulate the method, then you will start to gain some sanity around developing Web applications. Not that you wonit ever experience a chaotic project again, you will. This book will, however, help you develop strategies to make those projects run as smoothly as possible, thereby reducing team burnout and, ideally, help your group achieve true job satisfaction and profitability whenever you take on such a project. Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I have to thank my team at Red Sky for giving me the inspiration and support necessary to write this book: Adam Kane, Alisia Cheuk, Beau Giles, Christina Neville, Greg Meyers, Deirdre McGlashan, Jill Badolato, Kristine Gual, Sophie Jasson-Holt, Stacy Stevenson, Willy Lefkowitz, Pamela Snyder, and Yelena Glezer. You guys are the best. Thanks to all my colleagues at Red Sky for cheering me on.

Thanks to the great project managers I've known: Susan Junda, Chelsea Hunter, Lisa Welchman, Sheila Albright, Amy Lee, Stacy Stevenson, Deirdre McGlashan, Pamela Snyder, Christina Neville, Jill Lefkowitz, Mike Powell, Dave McClure, John Kim, Peter Rosberg, Don Howe, Lisa Bertelson, Linda Waldon, and those who've introduced themselves to me at conferences and trade shows. This book is really for you.

Thanks to the writers of books that inspired this book: Edward Yourdon, Louis Rosenfeld, Linda Weinman, Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister, Peter Drucker, Neal Stephenson, J. P. Frenza, Michelle Szabo, Phil Jackson, George Santayana, and Walt Whitman.

Thanks to the people who contributed to this book directly. Janine Warner gave me the original idea to write about Web teams, and she wrote the Miami Herald case study and most of Appendix B. Sophie Jasson-Holt, my friend and QA manager, wrote Chapter 7. Amy Lee, account manager at Red Sky, wrote the Absolut Vodka case study.

Andrew Klein, director of technology, and Gary Stein, account manager at Red Sky, wrote the Lands' End case study. Dave McClure, Peter Rosberg, Bayard Carlin, Dave Kendall, and Renay Weissberger Fanelli contributed to the Quicken Store case study. A big thanks to Tim Smith and Joel Hladecek for giving me a great interview.

Many thanks to the people who helped in the publishing process. For their thoughtful and helpful review of this book, my sincere thanks go to Heather Champ, Ken Trant, John Cilio, John Wegis, and Mitchel Ahern. Many thanks to my editor, Elizabeth Spainhour, who gave me support, supervision, and encouragement along the way. Thanks to Marilyn Rash's production team at AWL, Angela Stone of Bookwrights in Rockland, Maine, and Judy Strakalaitis of Bookworks in Derry, New Hampshire, for producing a beautiful book. Thanks to my agent, Margot Maley, for helping me find a publisher for this book.

Most of all, thanks to my family and friends, especially my husband Paul, for putting up with the late nights, early mornings, and weekends that I couldn't spend with you all while I was working on this book. Your understanding and support mean very much to me. And now that I'm done, bring on the beer! 0201433311P04062001

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201433311
• ISBN-13: 978-0201433319
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #661,648 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Most of the Way there, but...., April 3, 2000

By 

K. Schiff (Wilton, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Collaborative Web Development: Strategies and Best Practices for Web Teams (Paperback)

Give Jessica Burdman credit for concept and the wealth of practical tools, techniques and insights. This is an excellent book, especially for those who are trying to transfer their knowledge/skills from another field.

I'm in the process of working with writers and project managers who are coming from the more traditional publishing world. They are hungry for prescriptive formulas, guidelines, templates and checklists. This book (and CD) has them. They also want streamlined overview information about the technical side (the stuff they are really scared about), and this book has that too. I have seen nothing else like this book and for the moment the material is still fresh and relevant.

Ms. Burdman has lots of real life experience and her writing shows it. The anecdotal information and the interviews that are included further support the practical impact. Where the book begins to fall apart is that the interviews are not representative enough of the rest of the world. Many of the cited people fall into a small circle that she is acquainted with. IMHO, this dilutes the material's impact.

Also, given that this book is about a world that moves really quickly, Burdman's publisher made a big mistake in handling the resource information in the appendix. The software products cited are already out of date, and with each day this type of information becomes more and more irrelvant. It would have been better to point readers to an on-line resource center that is kept up-to-date.

If you are hardcore and have been doing work like this for years, this book is not for you. If you are looking for an organized and practical framework to use if you've been shooting from the hip, the book does the trick. Absolutely essential reading for the novice web project manager!

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Project Manager's Guide to Managing Web Projects!, June 17, 2000

By 

John Leo Mencias (Belize) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collaborative Web Development: Strategies and Best Practices for Web Teams (Paperback)

This is an excellent book for the person charged with managing a web development project for the first time, but who already has solid experience in project management per se. There are five areas in particular that are covered by the author which are quite helpful:
1) the roles and responsibilities of the individual members of the project team,
2) an overview of the planning process that should precede any web site production,
3) a framework for communication between team members, third-party suppliers and the client,
4) how to build quality assurance into web project development, and
5) a comprehensive guide to useful resources on the web.

While a previous reviewer criticized the comprehensive resource guide as a mistake, pointing out that these resources are mostly out of date, I see it as a positive and laudable effort to introduce the web's fundamental strength (that of linking to other resources) into traditional media. This in essence is what the author means by "collaborative web development": a direct collaboration between team members, third-party suppliers and the client and an indirect collaboration with other suppliers through resources and technologies available via the web. More authors should follow suit!

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Focus on Managing a Web Team, November 27, 1999

By 

Chuck Eby (Burke, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collaborative Web Development: Strategies and Best Practices for Web Teams (Paperback)

My search for books on Managing a Web Team turned up only two books, this one and "Web Site Engineering". Since this one arrived first, I read it first.

It is a quick, easy read, and has some valuable information in it that is not easily found elsewhere, even on the web. Few web books address dealing with the client, the care and feeding of the web team, and quality assurance, but this one does. Topics that I would have liked to have seen covered in more detail are configuration managment, the design process, and the development environment.