To plan a Web site effectively and obtain the results you want from it, it's helpful to understand the relationship between:

• needs,
• work, and
• results.

Needs are the basic requirements of people or organizations: what they must have to survive and flourish.

For example, babies need nourishment. Organizations need effective leadership, a sense of direction and the resources to move in that direction.

The natural tendency of people and organizations with needs is to take action, do some kind of work: A hungry baby cries or puts something in its mouth. We hear our competitors are setting up a Web site, and so we do the same thing.

The problem is that, in many cases, the work that is done doesn't satisfy the needs. The needs persist and people become frustrated because the work isn't paying off. We have a Web site but nothing else has changed.

A key concept in management and planning is that it is important to define the results that you want to obtain that will satisfy the needs before deciding what work to do.

So, for example, we are losing our customers because competitors are providing better service (the need). We decide that we want a Web site that will provide special services to customers that will keep them committed to us (the results). Then we design and build a site that will achieve these results (the work). That's the basic concept and philosophy behind WebResults.

Again, the critical concept is to define the results we want to obtain in order meet our needs before we decide what work to do. How to do this is defined in more detail in the planning process.