Website project management
Girls’ Brigade England & Wales, is part of a global family founded over 100 years ago. Worldwide there are over 3,000 Girls’ Brigade groups and over 126,000 members. Today Girls’ Brigade England and Wales (GBEW) offers a range of activities for girls and women. There are 450 GB community groups in England and Wales, around 9,000 girls and young women (primarily) and more than 2,000 volunteer leaders.
GB’s old website was built using an old website platform which was no longer supported. There were several different sites aimed at different audiences with different branding and messaging. GB wanted to bring all these together under one GB Ministries banner and they had just commissioned charity web design agency, Fat Beehive to help with the rebuild.
To help manage the project they were looking to recruit someone part-time to help manage the project from their side which is where That Web Person became involved. Instead, I offered project management support on a freelance basis, working remotely.
GB started the project with some valuable user research provided by Fat Beehive. To support this, I provided an in-depth review of their current traffic with a Google Analytics report, a content review and a competitor analysis. In addition, it was vitally important to meet the team with a visit to their offices in Calver, Derbyshire. I also had the pleasure of joining the girls at a group meeting on a stormy winters night in Portsmouth.
With all this information, I was able to set out a content plan which was our working document throughout the project. Each page from the old website was analysed to see if it needed to be brought over to the new site. Areas of work which weren’t well represented previously, were included in new areas of the navigation.
Working closely with both GB and Fat Beehive each stage of the project was well managed and kept on track. Stages included wireframe and design sign off, technical development, content population and testing and bug fixing.
The new site it an amazing achievement from the GB team. It’s easy to navigate and is peppered with great images and stories which really bring the organisation’s activities to life in one central place.
There is a dedicated resources section for group leaders which includes forms, policies, guidance, programme materials, podcasts and more. The site is well optimised for search engine traffic and users are encouraged to move around the site to learn more about GB and the fantastic opportunities and activities available to young women all over England and Wales.
Given my experience of working in-house and agency side, the new site is very easy for GB to update on an ongoing basis without further support from me.
Plus, the budget used was less than GB would have spent hiring a part-time staff member - leaving them additional resources for phase two development work.
Key achievements
user-research led approach focusing on the user’s needs
one central website for all their news, activities and resources
an easy to use content management system
tight budget management leaving resources for phase two
“Reena was recommended to us when we were looking for someone to project manage our new website.
She quickly fitted in with the team, was calm and efficient, kept us on track, and kept our website developers to account. She was insightful, professional, and a real asset to our project.
Her biggest strength, in my opinion, was the way she acted as a ‘translator’ between us and the website developers. She quickly learnt to speak ‘Girls’ Brigade’ and understand us in-depth but she also speaks ‘tech’ and understands what web developers need and want. She was invaluable to us during the website development and we’re so pleased with the outcome and our new site.”
“Reena’s eye for great design and attention to detail helped steer the website project immensely for the client. She ensured the final development provided all the functionality needed, was within budget and the final product would meet the organisation’s goals over the longterm”
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