All work done to the website falls in one of three categories:

New Features: the creation of entirely new development items, such as new
pages, dashboards, etc.

Improvements: making changes, additions, or improvements to existing

features.

Maintenance: fixing bugs, issues, or things not working as intended.

While each of the three items have distinctions, they generally follow the same
development workflow:
1. A
development request
is initiated by marketing, sales, R&D, or any other

department. The requestor includes as much detail as possible before passing it

on to the development team.

2. The development team completes a

development plan
and prioritizes the item
based on existing demands.

3. Development takes place on a local development server, using a new git branch.
4. When complete, the git branch is pushed to the central repository and pulled to
the staging server.
5. All quality assurance checks take place on the staging server. Once the branch
has passed quality assurance, it is pulled into the production server and merged
with the master branch.
6. The development team closes the development request file.
The progress is tracked in Trello.
Development requests (sent to developer from other departments)

Summary of request

Details

(if maintenance) issue details

Browser
Operating system

requires graphic design assistance?

requires copywriting assistance?

After a request is created, it is assigned to the development team, who then prioritize it
based on the following rules:
Prioritization of development requests

1. Security maintenance: any maintenance items that address potential security

threats
2. Critical maintenance: any maintenance items that hinder functionality
3. Revenue-driving features and improvements
4. Minor maintenance
5. Non-revenue-driving features and improvements
6. Refactoring maintenance
Development plans (created by developer)

git branch name

Summary: brief outline of the new feature

Objectives: one or more objectives this should accomplish

Goals and KPIs: what should be quantified to judge the success of the feature
and determine future improvements?

Development items: list of each individual item required in order to implement

this feature

Database modification: any changes that will occur to the database

Third-party requirements: any help needed from others (e.g. graphic design or
copy creation)

Development timeline: the order in which the project should be created and
estimates of how long each item will take

Quality assurance checklist (see below)

Deployment: steps that must occur when the feature goes live

Notes

Quality Assurance checklist (to be completed before the feature can go live)

Does the code use accepted code conventions and standards?

Will it affect the existing database structure or functionality?

Will it adversely affect legacy code?

Are any server architecture changes required?

Will it require server scaling?

Will it make sense to the user? (UI/UX)

Does it work across all devices, operating systems, browsers, and user
environments?

Are there sufficient unit tests?