Are we on target – or not?

If you've ever worked on a complex project before, you know that it's easy to get overwhelmed by the details and lose sight of the project's objectives.  That's why the reality check is a critically important step.

While reality-checking should be integrated into the web development process at every stage, it's still a good idea to take an overall last look at it before the site goes live.  It's the web equivalent of "sleeping on it" — and you already know how valuable that can be.

Even if all the code may work and there's not a technical error to be found anywhere, there's still plenty of reasons to take at least a moment to ask yourself whether a web site that's about to go live does what you intended it to do.

This important concept inspired some really bad poetry (see right) which, at the very least, may inspire you to remember that reality checks make for really good business decisions.

An excerpt from
“The Night Before Publish”

The code is all written,
the graphics all done
We’ve talked and we’ve toiled
and even had fun
But as we ready for publish
a glimmer of doubt
comes creeping and whining
and we’re ready to shout:

“We’ve done it! We’ve done it?
Are we really that sure
that our plan is a winner
and our web is The Cure?”

So we take a step backward
and look at our work:
Did we nail those objectives
Or is our doubt more than quirk?

— Anonymous
(no one wants the credit – or blame)