Pat’s Point of View

One thing that’s become apparent to me over the years is the power which web developers can have. It’s true that web managers, intranet managers and other such positions have authority but they often turn to ‘techies’ for answers. Yet many web developers feel like they are stuck at the end of the process, between and rock and a hard place. Without going into project management techniques or discussions on processes, there are ways in which they can wield some power.

Hey you, webmaster! You may not think you are influential, but you are highly regarded for your expertise. You probably don’t think of yourselves as ‘thought leaders’ but people will listen to you. You’re probably like me, in that your colleagues will describe you as “someone who doesn’t say much, but when he does it’s important you listen”. This is good.

Those who have the authority—such as project managers, web team managers, intranet managers—will stop everything to hear what you have to say because you have the knowledge about how things work ‘under the hood’ and what needs to be done to meet objectives. You’re probably considered to be the guy/gal with the answers, the person to talk to to get things done.

Doesn’t sound familiar? Let’s take a minute to explore why the above might not describe your particular case. Are you a web developer whose opinion is never valued, whose voice is never heard? Perhaps you need to look at how you interact with your colleagues. If you’re the grumpy IT guy who can’t take the time to stop and explain something to other people, do you really expect anyone to bother asking?

As web geeks you hold a special place in an organisation; you’re not a sys admin, and you’re not a marketing manager, you live somewhere in between. I for one wouldn’t be aligning myself too closely with any particular faction, as this will reduce your flexibility and maneuverability when it comes to working with other disciplines.

Too often designers and coders are stuck in IT departments that force them to be closed off to the rest of the business, and you’ll probably start to adopt their attitudes too. You may start referring to your audience as ‘lusers’ and using Klingon around the office. Of course the other extreme is just as bad, you don’t want to abandon all ties with technology and practicality. If you’re seen as part of a marketing or communications department, you might find you start to lose credibility with IT and the operational arms of the business. You may start planning ‘pop-unders’ on the intranet home page for the CEO’s message and talking about EDM as the way of the future.

At the end of the day, creating and maintaining websites and intranets is about communication, not technology. In order to succeed, and to have yourself heard, you need to be open to discussions with your fellow team members. You need to share the wealth of your expertise and you need to interface with all the different parts of the business.

So if you join in and are open, you’ll find that people will listen to you. In my experience people in less technical backgrounds will have the utmost respect for you because you bring important skills and experience to the party. I think managers inherently respect doers, at least in the web world. You can educate your colleagues and inject new ideas into the process. Take web standards and accessibility for example. In most teams it is the web developers and designers who will be able to pick up knowledge in these areas quite easily, and thus it’s their responsibility to share this with the rest of the team. There’s no point moaning about the lack of priority given to web standards if you don’t sell the idea. (Note: This may require you to get up from your computer.)

On a similar note, usability and user centred design are topics which designers and developers might be exposed to—if people like me are doing anything right that is—and may very well become champions of. They’re in the perfect position to then educate their colleagues and infiltrate team work practices.

Take intranets as another example. Most intranets are quite useless and remain stuck in a endless cycle of redesign because those designing, creating and managing them are working under a false assumption. What’s needed is for someone to take on-board the right approach and and correct the course of their collective ship. And who do you think might be well placed to do this? Web developers. Of course this will require them to actually care about doing things right, but this mightn’t be as hard as it sounds (recent years have shown massive up-take of principles by the web development community, and the motivation seems to be simply because it’s the right way to do it).

All these examples show one simple thing. If developers and designers want to, they can exert some influence on ‘their world’ because people will invariably listen to them. New ideas can be injected into the team by those at the coal face, so long as they are sensible and beneficial ideas. Suggesting the installation of a vending machine stocked with nothing but Red Bull, V and Mother is probably not going to win you the props you deserve. Have a think about it, discuss it with each other (regular brainstorm sessions within the production crew can be very useful) and you’ll find you have valuable contributions.

To flip this on it’s head, think of this common scenario: a manager wants to introduce a new way of working for his or her team. I’m sure we’ve all seen this many times, and almost as many times it fails. Why? If the people doing the work don’t want to change, they won’t. Passive resistance is rampant in the workplace. Ask anyone involved in change management and they’ll tell you that getting the doers on board is essential, by whatever means you can. But what if the doers are willing and enthusiastic about change? What if they want to change in a way that hasn’t been initiated further up the chain on command?

Creating a groundswell, particularly around a technical subject, should be an effective method which web designers and developers can use to affect change. OK you’re not eliminating poverty, but you can achieve something that is hopefully important to you and makes a difference to the way you work. Of course you’ll need to make a sound business case, and you’ll need to communicate with people. I’m sure there’s something on Google about both of those topics.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Web design. If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to leave a comment, find out more about me or follow @patrickkennedy on Twitter.

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