Plan  19 

Conduct an initial meeting 

Before work on the organization s site actually begins, it s good to hold an initial meeting 

of everyone involved with building it. The members of the Web team, outside consultants 

or contractors, and the Decision-Maker should all be there. 

Explain the process 

The Site Coordinator should explain how work on the site will progress (according to the 

Plan Train Organize Build Maintain process), the role of audience testing, and 

other aspects of site construction described in this book.  

Manage expectations 

This is also a good opportunity to answer common questions about site construction, 

such as how long it may take. This initial meeting should give the people involved with 

the Web project realistic expectations of what it will take to build the site, and a clear idea 

of how work will proceed. 

Initial meetings produce a better site  

 When we built our first Web site, it didn t go well. We just gave our brochure to 

someone inside the organization and had him start building the site based on it. We 

got a site that loaded slowly, with strange navigation and blurry graphics. Our 

members didn t like it. 

Now we re building a new site, and having several up-front meetings before work 

begins on it. We re getting a lot of input as part of the process, and we re getting a 

much better site.  

Pamela McElrath, Communications Chair, Greater Richmond Technology Council 

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