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Production Planning
How careful planning can help ease production headaches
6/29/98

by Brian Dame

As a production specialist, I'm the last stop in the web development assembly line. I stand waiting, wrench in hand, for other team members to pass along all the parts I need to build a site. Team members often extend their deadlines in order to buy themselves extra development time, but the launch date always stays the same. What does that mean for me? With tight deadlines and no room for extensions, I need to do a lot of careful planning if I'm going to finish building the site on time.

I don't think I've ever worked on a web project that's stuck to a schedule and met every milestone. Copy isn't written, the client wants to make changes at the last minute, or the design has to be modified to reflect a new company logo. This is sometimes frustrating, but it's also normal. It's part of building large-scale web sites. Since I can't control these aspects of the project, I try to focus on what I can control. If I can set up a game plan and stay organized, I have a much better chance of meeting the launch date. This article offers some tips and tricks that reflect what I've learned about production planning.

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