Starting an institutional website redesign? Form a WAC.
I know, I know… just what you need, more meetings. Hear me out, for your redesign effort to be successful you’re going to need buy-in and support from across the organization, not just from your department or from your boss. So take the time at the beginning of the project to ensure that all the right (read: politically necessary) people are at the table when things get started. It’ll make it that much easier to keep the proverbial train rolling once it leaves the station.
So who’s the right group? I’d say you’ll need representatives from:
Depending on the specific quirks of your school you might need to include a few more people. Yes, that’s a lot of people. And yes, getting them in the same place at the same time is going to be a pain. But in order for this committee to have the stature necessary to get anything done it’ll need to include a representative cross-section of the needs / wants and hopes / fears of the college.
Specifically, you’ll eventually want the WAC to:
Essentially the WAC should become your supreme court of all matters related to the interwebs. It’ll make key decisions related to stuff like the look, feel and technical underpinning of the website as well as decisions about things like the policies related to blogging, template usage and ownership. Plus, since you’ll be meeting with the committee every couple weeks to provide a progress report it’ll keep you moving along the project plan (see: the forthcoming ‘Plan of Attack’ blog posts).
Want to see a real-work example of a fantastic WAC in action? William & Mary kept a website redesign blog and have lots of posts related to their committee. Check it.