For the past year I have witnessed, an unfortunate saga: a web project led by a marketing firm that partnered with an IT vendor gone bad. The marketing firm has some web experience, but not substantial enough to produce the site alone. An IT “partner” was needed for technical resources and experience in the client’s business sector.

Here’s a list of events and circumstances that have transpired with this relationship:

• Partner could not satisfy interface design requirements. The marketing firm ended up doing a lot of extra work not budgeted
• The first demo of the beta site was not ready and had a lot of bugs. The presentation had to be conducted carefully skipping the functionality that did not perform correctly
• During periodic reviews, revisions were not implemented correctly, or in a timely manner, creating more unbudgeted work for the marketing firm
• Requirements continued to be unmet creating a great deal of frustration and doubts of the project’s success. The “partner” even refused to comply with contractual requirements for no legitimate reason
• Subsequent site demos were done with mixed and often embarrassing results
• After site launch, errors were occurring, excuses, assumptions and accusations abound
• Now the focus has turned to contractual obligations and possible litigation

It’s a shame there are unprofessional companies like the vendor in this story. This company lied, cut corners, had no respect for their client, or the project and obviously bit off more than they could chew.

All these issues are a Quality Control (QC) problem. A good QC plan could have brought attention to the trouble early and early usually means with less costs, or consequences.

A good QC plan:

• Is part of the contract or separate service agreement
• Details the QC process
• Lists requirements, tolerances, expectations, practices
• Assigns roles and responsibilities
• Has a schedule for periodic, performance reviews (with short intervals)
• Explains the consequences for failing to meet requirements

Marketing firms, agencies and other communication firms involved in web development often do not have the resources for this responsibility. A solution would be to hire a consultant to handle quality control. He/She would audit the vendor and assure compliance to contractual requirements and make sure best practices are adhered to during development. The money spent on this consultant would have minimized the extra burden on the marketing firm’s resources. If this person had the right skill set, he/she could also have assisted in development at times where the vendor faulted, keeping the quality of the project intact.

Don’t put your company in this situation. Plan for how Quality Control will be addressed and how these risks will be mitigated. You’ll sleep better for it.