Over the next several installments of the Zunch Nuzletter, I will be discussing the Zunch Manifest. The Zunch Manifest is our guide for web development methodology and best practices, with a heavy emphasis on the additional and specialized needs of developing websites with search engine optimization in mind. Our focus is integrated interdepartmental workflow – our process, with multiple goals and timelines that work. It is based on our collective experience and expertise; it has been tested and used in the real world, on real projects, and it is being continuously refined.

 

 

 

Over the course of the next several installments, I will be describing the tools we use internally to manage our projects. On the surface, this flies in the face of traditional wisdom. “Why would you give away the tools you use internally?” “Aren’t you afraid your competitors will get them?” “You are going to lose your competitive edge!”

 

We’re not worried. We realize it’s not the tools or knowledge alone that make a project successful, it’s the people involved, and our greatest resource as a company are our people. We are also not so arrogant as to claim that we came up with these ideas. We’re just gap closers. Through research and experience, we have found several good practices and have adapted them to our particular situation. Everything in the Zunch Manifest can be found in other locations. Feel free to use it if you can to make your project management more effective. We’re glad to help.

 

The best way to understand and utilize the Zunch Manifest is to read each of these installments from beginning to end. Once you have a 10,000 foot overview of the entire process, you can zero in on the specific areas that interest you and review them.

 

The Core Process is made up of five distinct areas. The five areas of the project are managed over six different departments at Zunch.

 

 

This is the framework for the entire process. We will fill in the cells of the Manifest over the next several installments.

 

 

Short answer: EVERYONE! The Zunch Manifest is a hybrid of several project management philosophies designed to streamline the process for everybody involved, not just the project manager and decision-makers. Zunch’s goal is to allow everybody on the client’s team and on our team to participate on a level playing field. To achieve this, the Zunch Manifest helps to define project-related terminology and necessary steps for any project we manage.

 

The Zunch Manifest can fit any size project. It can just as easily be utilized for SEO-only projects, web design/development-only projects or full-blown SEO, paid search, design/development projects with copywriting, interactive PR and traditional marketing services. When we say any project, we mean it! Internally, Zunch has used this process to manage projects as small as several thousand dollars and projects well over $100K. Even if your project falls out of this range, our process will expand or shrink accordingly.  No matter the size of the project, the foundation of the Manifest remains the same. In the end, this helps Zunch approach your project in an organized and comprehensive manner which allows us to save time, money, and stress along the way.

 

 

First, let’s be frank. The process of managing a large project with several people and interests involved can easily become dysfunctional. It takes lots of TLC and discipline to see the full lifecycle through successfully. For the purposes of the Manifest, the term “client” is a catch-all term. The client is different to the designers than it is to the Interactive PR department. In many cases, we deal with different business decision-makers during different stages of the project.

 

Throughout these articles, I will refer to the client. Don’t assume that this term is always referring to the same entity. It could be one or several persons. It could be a different person than it was referring to several paragraphs previously.  In a nutshell, the “client” refers to the person or persons in the position to give project, budget, design, copy or marketing approval in whole or in part.

 

 

There is no single process that can be all things to all people. We are not trying to make this fit everyone’s needs, only our own and those of our clients. The purpose of these articles is to explain how we handle process at Zunch. The Manifest is the definition of how Zunch handles workflow. With the goal of creating a framework to handle such a complex process elegantly, we had to eliminate detail in some cases. For instance, the development process can be very complex. There are many details required to manage the development of complex functionality on a case-by-case basis. In most situations, the details for any given project are not now and never will be relevant for any other project we work on. Thus, the Manifest is a guideline for workflow, not strictly project management per se.

 

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