Website Development Project Plan
This is a practical guide to building a project plan for a website development project — the integrated document that defines how the project is executed, monitored and controlled, adapted to the realities of designing and building a new website.
What a Project Plan is
A project plan is the integrated document that defines how the project is executed, monitored and controlled. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Project Plan. On a website development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Website Development project
Website Development projects live or die on designing and building a new website. A well-built project plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how website development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Scope and deliverables
- Schedule and milestones
- Budget
- Roles and responsibilities
- Risk and communication approach
Website Development-specific considerations
Tailor the project plan to the risks that most often derail website development projects:
- Scope creep from stakeholder requests
- Content readiness delays
- Browser/device compatibility
Example
On a real website development project, the project plan would be shaped by designing and building a new website. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — scope creep from stakeholder requests, content readiness delays, browser/device compatibility — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.