As a partner and consultant to the ecommerce businesses I’ve worked with, I’ve seen a lot of boondoggles. A boondoggle is a wasteful project which gives the appearance of having value. This practice seems to be extremely common in client-side ecommerce; as ecommerce managers are placed under increasing pressure to drive sales, they turn to technology that they often do not fully understand. The worst offenders make decisions in isolation, without consulting their agency partners. Rather than strategically planning projects that would drive results, they bounce from one technology solution to another, never making any real progress. Almost always in these situations, technology isn’t the answer to driving more sales, but technology is the easiest way to demonstrate progress to a superior. Inevitably, this approach leads to frustration when solutions don’t meet business goals; when asked, the ecommerce manager assigns blame to the agency, for the agency allowed this to happen, leading to a widening gap of distrust.

Can we improve things without building anything?

Digital build projects have a habit of starting life as little more than an idea that quickly becomes an inevitability … We reach for digital build projects as solutions because they are actually easier than dealing with the underlying problems—i.e. why we are failing to meet users needs and organization goals.

– Liam King Net Magazine, Issue 288, January 2017 Page 30

In my experience, the least successful engagements are the ones in which the client fails to cede, or share, the decision making process with their agency partner. It is the professional’s responsibility, as a trusted advisor, to protect their client’s interests by preventing them from making mistakes. Taking orders at face-value, without first understanding the business motivations behind a request and without then providing an educated professional recommendation, almost always leads to a poor outcome for both the client and the agency.

See the Pen Good, Fast, Cheap—Pick two by Joey Hoer (joeyhoer).