Commercial commerce is constantly innovating, and faced with the challenges of printing by managers, adopt more modern processes with a focus on results. Observing that the greatest difficulty when faced with Agile Transformation, the process and the language used by the development time are understood.
For this reason, I bring you a vision of project management as a customer and also as a service provider in a transparent and easy way.
Because I had the opportunity to carry out dozens of e-commerce and marketplace projects successfully, as well as learning from mistakes that are part of the trajectory in technology that allows us to test, fail, learn, ...
How to plan the development project!
The e-commerce project arises from a need, in this step it is necessary to list everything that is desired in the product. Therefore, you will need to elect in advance a qualified "Product Owner" of your company or a "Specialized Consultant", to make a plan, even before defining an e-commerce development agency to execute it.
An effective e-commerce project management, needs to be based on Agile Methodologies practices, which are a set of techniques in order to have more speed, efficiency and flexibility. Always aiming at the interaction, collaboration and experimentation of everyone involved from the idea to the final product. In this model, which is different from classic project management, changes in scope occur along the way. For this reason, the documentation must exist and the project must end.
See the differences in management models
Understanding the Agile Scrum Flowchart
What are you doing?
Stakeholder - is the interested party in the organization of the project that, in some way, is impacted by the company's actions. They are customers, suppliers, employees, communities and investors, for example.
Product Owner - is the product owner responsible for the project on the part of the customer, who is there to ensure that this investment returns value to the interested parties.
Scrum Team - is the agency team responsible for the tasks.
Scrum Master - is the project manager of the agency responsible for managing the scrum team.
What is?
Sprint - is to split up stages of the project in order of relevance, and to solve part of a complex problem. This partial solution is represented by an incremental version of the product, which can be inspected together to decide what should happen next.
Sprint Planning - is when the scrum team makes a basic plan of the objective for the next Sprint.
Daily Scrum - occurs every 24 hours to allow developers to navigate the complexities involved, inspect the progress and necessary adjustments.
Step by step to Sprint
1- Product Backlog
It is a list containing everything you want from the product. In a transparent way, the product owner shares with the scrum team, which is committed to the product's objective.
During this work, the product backlog changes continuously to reflect new insights and opportunities that arise over the period.
Upon completion of delivery, a new product goal must be defined while maintaining the focus and commitment assumed.
The items are ordered according to their relevance, for the interests of the product and its stakeholders. The scrum team understands what it takes to achieve the goal and works on each idea, hypothesis, bug, resource or task.
2- Sprint Backlog
This process is not static and changes as teams learn more during the Sprint. In close collaboration with the product owner, developers can add or remove items based on how much time is left in the Sprint and the relevance or need of those items for the purpose of the sprint.
Simply put, it is a period of 2 to 4 weeks, when the project is being planned and executed.
At this stage, the scrum team and the product owner hold daily meetings of 10 to 15 minutes with the aim of making communication transparent, inspecting progress, and making the necessary changes to achieve the goal.
And everyone needs to answer the 3 questions about the project on a daily basis:
What did you do yesterday?
What will you do today?
Are there any impediments?
3- Finished Work
It is the increment, that is, an item in the product backlog that has been completed.
Each increment represents a step towards the overall goal of the product.
If several scrum teams work on a single product, they integrate their work in a single increment with each sprint so that an effective inspection can take place and after that get feedback from the product owner.
5- Sprint Review + Retrospective
The review takes place at the end of each sprint, before the retrospective. This is the moment when the product owner gathers all interested people and those who create the product to inspect together, and decide the next steps according to the current market conditions, budgets and schedules. The question for everyone here is "Based on learning from this Sprint, what are the next steps?"
Based on the retrospective that the scrum team learned from inspecting their collaboration, they may decide to make adjustments to improve the effectiveness of the next sprint delivery.
Before all the above processes, follow these prerequisites and guarantee the success of your project!
1. Platform - It needs to support robust operations for the evolution of the project, because migrating later is more costly. Make sure that in the "proposal and in the contract", you cover all the needs of the business. For example, list the entire ecosystem of technology vendors that have native integration, so you don't have surprises and extra costs with integration service when you need it.
2. Catalog and Content - Product images must be of high quality, with all color variations and at various angles. If you don’t have professional e-commerce images with a white background, make sure you don’t even start without it. The catalog must have a detailed description of all products, anticipate a content review. Compare the quality of the best competitors, and do better, enriching your spreadsheet with as much detail. Making a folder with logos, brand book, institutional images of the company in high quality and cases that like the layout is important for the reference that the design will use in the development.
3. SEO - Provide a study for your business, of good practices with keywords for the content. Any text on the site will always be the sole responsibility of the contractor to define and provide. This investment is very important for the relevance in organic search and economy with sponsored ads.
4. Inventory - Define how many SKUs will start the operation, and which inventory model you will choose. It can be with own stock or from suppliers, so it is very important to align the logistical coordination, purchase volume statistics, based on history, growth and safety stock.
5. Fulfillment - Warehousing, packaging, picking and packing with its own structure or that of a partner? Do all SKUs need to be packed per unit with bar codes and identification? Custom or standard packaging? Do any products need special packaging (temperature, humidity, insulation, etc.)? If you offer prompt delivery, what stock coverage in days do you intend to work on and what space is needed in square meters? What is the average of SKUs per current and projected order? Do you know how to price the product correctly, considering the logistics to offer free shipping, and get better results?
6. Reverse Logistics - What is the percentage of orders returned in the current operation and what is the planned projection?
7. Carriers - Who are specialized in this type of operation? Do they use APIs to classify products, calculate taxes accurately, generate necessary documents such as invoices and packing list?
8. SAC - Service with an internal team or outsource a call center on site? Which tool to use to make the communication workflow?
9. ERP, Billing and Accounting - Do the systems support the operation?
10. Payment and fraud - What will be the payment gateway and anti-fraud system used?
11. Marketing and UX (User Experience) - Which digital agency with experience in implementation project and marketing management, or will you do it with an internal development team? If you choose to do it internally, it will be essential to start with a specialist in front end development, digital marketing, web design and copywriter for content production.
12. Sales planning - What is the goal of average sales per month, first, second and third year?
13. Financial planning - Did you do business planning for the business model? Does the planning include all taxation rules for the areas you intend to operate in?
14. Marketplaces - In which marketplaces do you want to sell? It is recommended to choose a good HUB to connect to the best marketplaces, integrating your catalog and stock in a unified and simple way.
15. Legal - Which partner office specializing in digital business will be hired for contracts available online, such as terms of delivery, terms of services, delivery policies, refunds and even payments? After bidding with multiple suppliers, have the contracts to sign reviewed by the legal counsel of both parties and prevent delays in the project.
16. Project team - Will you need to recruit, training? Who will be the "Product Owner"?
At first it seems complicated, but in practice it is easy to introduce it into the company's routine, including in other departments. And if you really want to be a modern and digital company, you will need to get involved with Agile Management practices.
Take advantage of this information and share it with your Stakeholders!
Erica Borges, Founder of THE1 Showroom and THE GOAL #ECommerceB2B #crossborder #bcbecommerce #b2cecommerce #b2b2cecommerce #ecommerce #ecommerceb2b2c #ecommerceb2b #ecommerceb2c