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Karen Friend
Senior Scientist
Decision Sciences Institute |
Based on staff feedback and also in the interest of ensuring PIRE remains competitive in a challenging funding environment, several improvements are in process. The first is to revise our internal website. Leading both of these efforts will be Paul LaVoie and Karen Friend.
Our first charge is to work on the internal site. Karen has solicited feedback from heads of our Central Business Office and from Site Administrators. We are asking what materials from their sites/offices they would like to see on the internal site, how best to tag these items to improve the “search” functionality, and what other feedback they have to improve this site. The goal is to create a site where staff can find forms and other information they need easily and efficiently.
In addition, we will be work with the gone but never forgotten ITAG (Information Technology Advisory Group) to revitalize our external site. This site is what the world sees, and one of our greatest marketing tools. The ITAG will serve as advisors for this process and as points of contact for staff input.
But wait! There’s more! Our ultimate goal is to migrate the internal and external Web pages to a flexible platform that will allow staff and Center controls. With this change, the sites can remain current and relevant, since revisions can be made by multiple users.
This will be an iterative process that will ultimately help us in our everyday work and in our marketing possibilities.
More specifically, the operationalization of these tasks will occur as follows:
Internal Website
- Collect and Review Requirements
- Talk to all the CBO Department heads
- Collect information on where they post content for distribution; e-mail blasts, stored on either company.pire.org, share.pire.org. etc.., other methods.
- Ask if there is content that’s not currently published and should be
- Ask about what functionality they would like to see added
- Talk to site admins for the same purpose
- Collect information on where they get content to see if it matches current data or if they pulling old/unusable data instead
- Find out if there content they wish were available online that is not
- What functionality would they like to see added
- Review collected data with Web development team (Tchikaya and Joey) and scope out the work
- If some new functional requests are too complex may need to weigh development costs against returns and usefulness.
- Timeframe – 2 weeks, which may be longer once vacations and other factors are accounted
- Develop a demonstration
- Web Development Team will basic demo a few basic pages showing what the new functionality would look like
- Karen/Paul will review demonstrate site to suggest changes
- May also demonstrate to CBO and site administrators for additional feedback
- Review feedback and develop a scope of work
- Timeframe – 2 weeks or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Develop User Acceptance Testing (UAT) site
- After input on the demonstration, the Web Development Team will create a more functional site that will not contain 100% of content for UAT
- Karen/Paul will review the demonstration site to suggest changes
- Timeframe – 2 weeks or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Have a full pilot or UAT
- Send links for self-discovery of the UAT site
- Schedule webinars to train/demonstrate the site
- Karen/Paul will compile the input from the UAT process
- Review collected input with Web Development Team and craft a scope of work
- Timeframe – 2 weeks or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Go Live
- Web Development Team will implement final changes
- Karen/Paul will review and announce date on which the site will go live
- Timeframe – 1 week or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Caveats
- Some of the sections of the internal site consists of large collections of documents
- Might necessitate additional time to work with the CBO staff to filter old documents and only include documents that are current and relevant.
- Total timeline – 8 to 10 weeks
External Website Project
- ITAG Meeting 1 - Karen will host a meeting to provide directions to the ITAG reps to gather input on requirements for the new external site
- Give ITAG reps roughly 2 to 3 weeks to gather and compile info
- Karen will work with Paul/Tchikaya/Joey on initial cost and time analysis
- ITAG Meeting 2 - Karen, with assistance from Paul/Tchikaya, will review the information gathered from the sites, talk about any outliers or costly/extensive requests and get consensus on a scope of work
- Develop a demonstration
- Web Development Team will basic demo a few basic pages showing what the new functionality would look like
- Karen/Paul will review demonstrate site to suggest changes
- May also demonstrate to ITAG (and others?) for additional feedback
- Review feedback and develop a scope of work
- Timeframe – 3 weeks or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Karen/Paul will check in with UAT participants weekly for updates
- Develop User Acceptance Testing (UAT) site
- After input on the demonstration, the Web Development Team will create a more functional site that will not contain 100% of content for UAT
- Karen/Paul will review the demonstration site to suggest changes
- Timeframe – 3 weeks or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Karen/Paul will check in with UAT participants weekly for updates
- Have a full pilot
- Send links for self-discovery of the UAT site
- Multiple iterations as testers will consist of multiple groups – ITAG/CDs/All PIRE
- Schedule webinars to train/demonstrate the site
- Karen/Paul will compile the input from the UAT process
- Review collected input with Web Development Team and craft a scope of work
- Timeframe – 3 weeks or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Karen/Paul will check in with UAT participants weekly for updates
- Go Live
- Web Development Team will implement final changes
- Karen/Paul will review and announce date on which the site will go live
- Timeframe – 3 week or longer, depending on scope of work and scheduling issues
- Total timeline – 12-15 weeks
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