The title may sound like it’s about the things not to do when designing a Web site such as creating impossible to use forms. The article takes a look at the things not to do more from a project perspective. A very important rule with any project is to have one consistent owner. Too often, I’ve seen contractor and employee send different players to the table and this leaves the project open to miscommunications and holes.

Executive buy-in is also key. I worked on a project where we were working to get the department certified for a process model. Executives wanted it and pushed impossible deadlines on us. Even with their support, it was a struggle to get everyone below them to cooperate. Imagine having no executive buy-in. They could’ve done a better job by urging their managers to get involved and to spare resources for the project and make room by reducing the software release load (see #6 in the article: resources and #9: unrealistic expectations). Instead, directors told the project team to get certification by X date. It was about the destination and not the journey. All wrong. Got a comment?