For the web professional, there are various activities that occur on a consistent basis, I’ve boiled them down to three succint types of activities. Working as a lowly production UI designer to managing a global website, I’ve had to do all.
The Task
What: A web task is a short term undertaking that could involve any type of activity that supports a website.
Examples: These could be content changes, database checks, stylesheet changes, or reporting and monitoring.
Who: Typically assigned to the content, development, web analysts, production, or engineering team, these are the core activities that keep the website running efficiently.
The Project
What: A specific-duration activity, this project involves the completion of a goal, and success is measured upon completion and timeliness to complete.
Examples: Several projects may be going on during any given time such as a redesign project, code upgrade, cms install, or language translation.
Who: Often assigned to a web manager, business analyst, or dedicated project manager, this person may call upon resources from various teams in the company from the web team, marketing, and often IT.
The Business Program
What: These ongoing business programs (not to be confused a web application ‘program’) are the heart of a web managers purpose, their job is to manage these ongoing programs with a specific goal in mind: increase revenue or decrease costs. These web programs are designed to fulfill objectives of a web strategy.
Examples: the Intranet program, the Extranet program, the International website program, the Community Program, the Blogging Program, or the corporate website program.
Who: This duty is typically relegated to the Web Strategist (titles include web manager, web director, vp of web marketing). They will employ a number of ongoing resources to properly allocate for content, code, production, management, and ongoing maintainence.