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Resources > White
Napkins > Web Nannies
White Napkin #2: Why Your Web-Based Service Needs A Nanny
A web-based service, be it a portal, an intranet or a internet venture
can be expected to have a variety of stakeholders, probably an owner,
certainly a Responsible Executive (to take the blame), but how many have
a Nanny?
WHAT, you say? A nanny - as in a children's nanny? Surely you jest!
Actually, I don't jest.
Think about it.
Every important project has sponsors, stakeholders, responsible executives
(or whatever the title is of the highest level person who will suffer
if the project suffers), as well as developers, testers, analysts, project
managers, editors, webmasters and so forth. And each of these people has
a variety of responsibilities and demands upon their time. Your initiative
may even have an owner.
The problem is that most of these people are busy with day-to-day responsibilities
that do not include spending time clicking through the web. They will
respond quickly if something is brought to their attention, and the priority
overrides the other items on their plate, but they are not out looking
for and anticipating problems before they happen. Rarely do these people
wakeup every morning and click through the service. Essentially, they
know only what others tell them.
So a nanny is needed. Someone who will give daily attention and care to
the service - be it a web, an application or a whatever. The only reason
you would not need a nanny is if the web or service is not important to
your company or organization. But if that is the case, why are you spending
money on it anyway?
The duties of a nanny are simple:
Click through the major functions every day
Make sure that content is current
Review the log analysis report for anomalies
Review the error log for problems
Report up the line any issues uncovered.
That's it. On average it should take about 1/2 hour a day to run the above
tasks.
Now, who should do this?
My preference is for a staff person, preferably one that has some contact
with the user community. The qualities I would look for include:
Fairly bright
Interested in the users and cares about their experience
Computer literate
How do you train a nanny?
First, familiarize you designated 'nanny' with the web site or application.
Then:
Make sure they understand what is supposed to happen with content, processes,
and work flows
Show them the performance measures and metrics that are used to measure
performance and success, and how they are interpreted
A trained log analyst will need to introduce the nanny into interpreting
the various log analyzer outputs, including the daily error log report
and whatever other critical performance reports.
Keep the Nanny happy
Depending upon the person selected, you may want to chose another role
title, something like 'First Alert', or 'Guard Dog'. Consider the personality,
or even let them come up with their own role title - it will keep them
endlessly amused.
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