| Hiring the 'right number' of people to form a web team | | | | for example; e-commerce websites. These sites |
| can be an extremely tricky job. Many organizations | | | | contain transactional interactive features such as time |
| don't understand the amount of work required to keep | | | | sheets, servers, security systems etc. A team of |
| their sites operating smoothly. The work of a web | | | | highly qualified staff is needed for maintenance of such |
| team doesn't end with the website going live; in fact | | | | web sites. |
| the challenging part of website maintenance starts at | | | | 2. Website Activity |
| this point. Most managers forget that websites also | | | | To keep it simple, busy sites need more manpower. |
| require a substantial maintenance staff. This leads to | | | | Busy websites need to deal with feedback, customer |
| understaffing of the web development team. | | | | problems and general issues of maintenance. Online |
| Understaffing can be fatal and can lead to lost | | | | activity of a website can be measured using various |
| business, reduced productivity, increased workplace | | | | analytics. Page impressions and number of visitors |
| risk which are far greater than the cost of hiring. | | | | determine the website activity. |
| So not only 'hiring the right people' but also 'hiring the | | | | 3. Size |
| number of right people' is important for the | | | | The bigger the website is, the more people are |
| effectiveness of a team. The article outlines factors | | | | required to maintain it. The size of a website is |
| that should be considered when deciding the 'number | | | | measured by the total number of pages it has online |
| of people' required to form a web development team: | | | | (web pages). The more pages it has, the bigger is the |
| 1. Complexity of the Website (Level of technical | | | | size. |
| expertise required) | | | | But one could argue that a site may host thousands of |
| Different technologies ranging from basic to complex | | | | pages, but each page might just contain a few words. |
| can be used for developing a website. Some websites | | | | Hence, the best way of calculating the size of a |
| are just simple ones that contain plain text, images | | | | website is to estimate the total number of man-hours |
| (HTML/XHTML) hosted on a web server. These | | | | required to produce and maintain the site's content. |
| uncomplicated 'basic' sites are easy to maintain and | | | | Accordingly, one can calculate the manpower needed |
| don't require many members for maintenance. | | | | for the sites maintenance. |
| A website can also be dynamic in nature - content is | | | | Managers when hiring for a web development team |
| stored in a database and then published according to | | | | only concentrate on the complexity of a website and |
| visitor requirements. These sorts of websites require | | | | technologies and forget that a website requires |
| more maintenance and manpower. For example: | | | | maintenance and hence a substantial maintenance |
| News Websites are dynamic in nature. Continuous | | | | staff as well. Overcoming this attitude can be a great |
| upgrading and a strong article database is required for | | | | challenge. The factors mentioned above, wise |
| such websites. | | | | decisions and of course with luck, you can have the |
| The highest level of complexity is of a transactional | | | | ideal number of people in your web development |
| website - it uses the web to host applications in | | | | team. |
| support of business operations and generate revenue, | | | | |