Getting started with rebuilding versus refreshing
It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. A short on-ramp to rebuilding versus refreshing for teams who have not touched it before.
Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.
What it costs to ignore
A rebuild is not always the answer. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- If the structure is sound, styling and content may be enough
- Change one thing and measure it
Rebuild when the platform blocks what you need to do. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.
What this looks like day to day
The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about rebuilding versus refreshing before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Rebuild when the platform blocks what you need to do — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
Most of the value here comes from doing the first two things, not all of them.