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Building an Internal Web Management Team

If you are tasked with maintaining your corporate website or intranet, you immediately have two choices: do the work in-house, or outsource it. There are companies like Collaborint Web Management Services who have the experience, expertise, tools, and processes required to effectively manage a corporate website regardless of the platform. Still, some companies prefer to build up their internal resources to accomplish the task. If you're going to commit to building an internal Web Management Team, be prepared to allocate sufficient resources for developing this area of expertise within your organization. Web technologies are complex, extremely dynamic, and getting more so.

This article is intended to identify and introduce some of the basic skills that should be considered necessary within a web management team and to help you distinguish those which would be more efficiently outsourced or ignored altogether.

The smallest effective web management team is probably no less than 3 people: a web designer, a technical expert, and a manager. Plan on a smaller team relying upon help and support with system, network, and database administration from the company IS department. In most cases, there are at least 5 positions to fill.

The HTML Specialist

When hiring your first HTML Specialist, find one that has at least a couple of years of experience. Basic HTML is easy to learn, but knowing all the pitfalls and tricks to do things just right takes experience. Make sure this person has a working knowledge of technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript and XHTML. This person should have also proficiency in authoring tools like Dreamweaver or GoLive and graphics programs like PhotoShop and Fireworks. The competent HTML Specialist must also command basic design skills in order to address page layout challenges and to be able to regularly interface with dedicated graphics designers. Often overlooked, it is essential that your HTML Specialist demonstrates thorough and current knowledge of both established and emerging HTML standards and the associated web browser compatibility and compliance implications. It has become a common expectation that an HTML Specialist be aware of and can implement standards-based HTML code that supports your search engine marketing, website accessibility, and usability efforts.

Keep in mind that, while authoring tools can generate some simple JavaScript, you'll frequently need to be able to modify and debug it, and so someone on your team should be a relative expert on the subject. This may or may not be, the HTML Specialist.

The Web Designer

Your website will need graphics. Whether it's a snazzy, graphics-based menu, a more conservative web page design, or simple demo graphics, almost every website requires the use of image manipulation tools such as PhotoShop and/or Fireworks. Vector-based, more print-oriented illustration programs, such as Illustrator and Freehand, are more specialized and more complicated, but not as essential. The same can be said for Flash. Unless your site is already full of Flash content or you have very specific requirements for its use, it can be considered an optional skillset if you are developing your own in-house expertise. Instead, use your budget to invest in more server-side and administrative expertise.

The Web Programmer

The important programming skills you'll need to acquire will depend on the platform on which your websites are based. The most useful parts of your site will usually be the parts built on server-side scripting, including database access and mail functions. Don't worry at first about finding someone proficient in advanced technologies like J2EE or XML. Instead, find an experienced scripting and database expert. Take the time to train your HTML developers with the basics of server-side scripting so that they know it when they see it and can efficiently interact with your Web Programmer.

The System/Database Administrator

This team member will be in charge of system and database administration, web server configuration, revision control configuration and maintenance, and site statistics analysis. You will probably want the technical administration to be done by one person. Web server software will be dependent on the platform you're using - some common ones are IIS for Windows and Apache running on Linux. Your SysAdmin should also be knowledgeable in revision control software such as Visual SourceSafe or CVS. Make sure you hire someone who knows how to administer your database or install and configure a new one. For basic, moderately-sized websites, it is often more important that the System/Database Administrator have fundamental, cross-platform, relational database design, administrative skills and experience than highly specialized and platform-specific knowledge.

The Manager

Web Management takes a tremendous amount of planning, communication and coordination to run smoothly. Make sure you have a person to coordinate the efforts of the staff with the needs of the content managers, and to make quick decisions when questions arise over priorities or schedules. This person must have an effective task management process, and should be proficient in the principles of information architecture, user interface issues, and these days, at least a cursory knowledge of search engine marketing and optimization disciplines.

It's best to stay away from hiring and concentrating your dependence upon one person with all the skills you need; you'll end up with someone who knows something about a lot of things but might not be particularly good at any of them. To manage this, encourage cross-training and shared responsibilities in anticipation of turnover when you inevitably lose some member of your staff to promotion or another job.