The reality of many web strategies is the requirement to build some fairly complex applications.  Those can range from sophisticated applications that connect different repositories of data in a web interface to applications that automate processes and work flow.  The key to success with these types of web apps is the up front design process.  Having a well thought out strategy and roadmap is crucial.  Here are a few things to consider:

1.  What’s your budget – And we are not just talking licensing, hardware and development – make sure you consider costs in time for your team, your domain experts, your executives, your IT staff, etc.

2.  What’s high impact or low hanging fruit – Big projects need big wins to be successful.  If your not sure what those big wins are – then do a functional analysis and do some cross team rankings for priority and impact.  This will help to get everyone on your team focused on success and priorities.

3.  Roadmaps – One of the best things you can do if you are building a solution in stages is to develop a roadmap.  Build the large targets on the roadmap and outline the key strategic goals and enterprise impact.

4.  Technology Selection – Often large projects will require more than one technology to be utilized and implemented.  If the technology budgets is high consider doing a more formal technology selection process with RFPs, demo sessions, etc.  A well run process can help to ensure the right technologies are selected to implement the solution

Large projects can be wildly successful if well planned and thought out.  Projects that are done in knee jerk fashion or with little analysis and planning can often be more negative than positive in impact.