How good is perfect?

These are troubled times in the life of any project: the closer one comes to the delivery dates, the more all different components of a project come together.

The front-end of the Deliver systems is the Portal, the giant website that will give access to all data WFP logisticians need. It will also be the information repository for the general public AND the main "shopping window" where any humanitarian organisation can request us for logistics services.

The Portal needs to be good. Let me correct that. The Portal needs to be perfect. But the "more perfect", the longer it takes, and often the more complex the development.

Since a year, we have been working on the development of the Portal. From the try-out sites - testing technology, business flows, information gathering - to extensive business requirements gathering, system specifications and development. From contents gathering, development of back-end systems to graphical layout.

The release date for the full Portal was set to March 2009. And it still is... But now is the time where the different 'project streams', the shackles of the chain, are coming together:

• Our corner stone is the ICT department, our technical implementation partner, coordinating all the technical issues. For the Deliver Portal, they made the bold move of selecting a completely new technical platform for web development. Loads of challenges come with that. If anything, they are the heroes of The Portal.
  
• Many different logistics units have been writing pieces of content, which we will use as main information pieces, briefings or teasers on the portal.
• The Logistics Development Unit, worked with the business units to gather what information is needed for people to do their work more efficiently, and mapping it out to a great technical detail.
• We worked on the user-experience end of the Portal (the navigation, the graphical layout, the usability)
• The UNHRD staff worked for months preparing the migration of their stocks data into the SAP Warehouse Management System (WMS), battling many technical challenges.
• - ...
  

The closer we come to the release date, the tighter the link between all these different streams. Nightmares pop up of having overlooked one or the other critical element which would jeopardize the project. Or at least cause major delays.

On December 15, we were supposed to go into "beta testing" (call it "internal testing") of one part of the Portal: the intranet part which would replace the current try-out sites.. Unfortunately a number of technical issues have popped up, and we are late.

The new time line has now one big milestone: by Feb 28th, the development of the whole portal should be finished, ready for us to test. We will then take one month to test and debug the whole site (which contains a couple of hundred pages, and links to a dozen of backend systems).

A very very aggressive planning. And a very aggressive goal too: we don't want to deliver a good product, we want it to be as perfect as can be. Something we can be proud of.

But one question continues to pop up: Good or Perfect? How Good is Perfect if it causes delays? How perfect can a website really be?