Website Development Project Timeline
This is a practical guide to building a project timeline for a website development project — a high-level chronological view of the phases and key dates, adapted to the realities of designing and building a new website.
What a Project Timeline is
A project timeline is a high-level chronological view of the phases and key dates. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Project Timeline. 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 timeline 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
- Phases
- Key milestones
- Go-live / launch date
- Major dependencies
Website Development-specific considerations
Tailor the project timeline 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 timeline 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.