1. Inception
1.1. Goal: Get everyone on the about what it is we're trying to accomplish
1.2. Exercises from Project Management Samurai
2. Audience Research and competitive analysis
2.1. Goal: Learn about the people we are trying to reach and who we'll be competing for their attention with
3. Message Development
3.1. Goal: Get our messaging down
4. Product Requirements Gathering
4.1. goals
4.1.1. Generate user stories to figure out how we're going to connect our messages to our audience
4.1.2. Prioritize and estimate these stories
5. Content Strategy
5.1. Goal: Figure out what content needs to be developed and which channels it's going out over
6. Keyword Reserach
6.1. Figure out what our audience searches for so we know how to write and label our content
6.2. Now folded into content strategy
7. User Experience Design
7.1. Goals
7.1.1. Figure out how the site will function in terms of navigation, content types, and basic layout
8. Visual Design
8.1. Goal: Figure out how the stuff figured out in UXD is going to look and an overall look-and-feel for the campaign
9. Community and Outreach Strategy
9.1. Goal: Combine content resources and keyword research to figure out how we're going to get people to the site and keep them engaged. This is where we figure out all the off-site channels and any community stuff we want on the site
10. Production
10.1. Goal: Create the stuff we'll use! Production is an iterative process where we repeat several of the steps above for the stories gathered in the requirements phase
10.2. What does production look like
10.2.1. Iterative Software development
10.2.1.1. Take what was created in User Experience design and visual design and convert it to working application code
10.2.2. Iterative prototyping
10.2.2.1. Staying a step ahead of development, prototype the next parts of the project and test them with real user
10.2.3. Iterative design
10.2.3.1. As user experience deliverables are tested and confirmed, style them to be coherent with the overall look and feel of the campaign
10.2.4. Copywriting
10.2.4.1. Working from the content strategy, any copy associated with the current feature is created, tested, and edited
10.2.5. Governance and Content Maint
10.2.5.1. As we move from new copy to reviewing and maintaining the existing copy
10.2.6. Acceptance Testing
10.2.6.1. We'll show you what's been done in an iteration, you'll say whether it's what you expected, and we'll deploy it
11. Deployment
11.1. Once enough code and copy has been accepted, we'll deploy your site. This means the world can see it
11.2. Outreach starts in earnest around deployment to drive traffic to the site
12. Analysis
12.1. Goal: Figure out how the things we've deployed are working and where to go next
13. Repeat
13.1. As we get data from analysis on the performance of existing features, we'll work together to determine whether budget is best put toward backlogged features or refining already deployed functionality, which means a return step 8 to production
14. Meta
14.1. Format for Document version
14.1.1. Overview
14.1.1.1. What do we do in this step?
14.1.2. Why we do this
14.1.3. Phase and orientation in process
14.1.4. What's next
14.1.5. What's before
14.1.6. What's through
14.1.7. Who is involved
14.1.8. What are the deliverables
14.2. Overall goals
14.2.1. Produce high quality work quickly and inexpensively
14.2.1.1. By high quality work, we mean work that accomplishes your actual goals by connecting visitors with your messages and goal-actions
14.2.2. Keep change cheap
14.2.2.1. Change is a fact in any development project; our goal is to work as the lowest possible fidelity to keep change cheap
14.2.3. Keep everyone's eyes on the prize
14.2.3.1. From the outset, we focus on what we about the world we're trying to change
14.2.4. Fail faster
14.2.4.1. Great companies fail faster and pivot; if you expect to get everything right the first time, you are setting yourself up for overall failure
14.2.4.2. Our approach constantly tests our work product and pivots our tactics to ensure that we're always learning and improving
14.2.5. Effectively uses your budget
14.2.5.1. Once we have our strategy down, we build as little as possible at a time and keep our work constantly production ready; this means that we're always working on the most important parts of your site at any given time
14.2.6. Test everything
14.2.6.1. At each stage, we work to setup conditions to verify that our work has been effective
14.2.7. Drive the process with repeatable deliverables
14.2.7.1. For us internally, the goal here is to have repeatable, templated deliverables that we can estimate well and produce with a minimum of fuss; that makes this a product
14.2.8. Scalability
14.2.8.1. This is a full menu of services. Depending on budget and goals, we may elide steps
14.3. Weaknesses
14.3.1. Requires an involved client
14.3.1.1. This is an iterative approach; that means we're going to be showing you progress at a quick clip, but it also means pretty frequent reviews and pretty heavy involvement. If you can't be involved, we may need to set our sights lower
14.3.2. Occurs in the real world
14.3.2.1. The approach depends on being able to know about our audience and even get ahold of some of it at several stages. This means we can't just go off in a vacuum and produce something brilliant; we're going to need to recruit real people and test our ideas
14.3.3. Is unashamedly iterative
14.3.3.1. We will always produce our best work; however, we know that we'll improve with time and won't get things right the first time. You have to be comfortable learning and testing constantly; if you expect a soothsayer, you may need to find someone else to work with
14.3.4. Feels complicated
14.3.4.1. Because we're strategic, there are a lot of steps here! That makes the whole thing feel a lot more complicated than "a comp of the homepage and a website in two weeks." Our goal is to keep you working strategically; if you just want to do stuff and worry about whether it works later, this won't work for you