Decide early: go big or go home?

One of the most common errors I see organizations make is that they narrowly define what “our website” is. Whereas internally you may have a team called the “web team” that only manages your primary .com site, the outside world may see more of a constellation of sites:

Your users see the whole constellation of your web presence, not just what "the web team" manages

When facing a big change, many organizations take one of two approaches:

• Add to the problem, by for example creating yet another one-off microsite.
• Not really change the problem, by only changing “our website,” with the change being so obscured from real users that the do not even notice.

Some common approaches aren't very effective: adding yet another one-off, or changing the main site without the other sites

Note that it’s very easy to fall into this trap, and jumping straight to talking with implementation partners is a sure fire way to do it. This is mostly through no fault of the implementor since that’s how you framed the problem. There’s also a structural bias here, since it’s far easier to impress when adding on or simply swapping out one component.

A much bolder approach would be to subsume more into the main website, for instance seamlessly integrating documents, events, and conferences.

A bolder approach, even if it isn't as glamorous, is to have a more integrated suite of sites

Depending on the current state and what you are attempting, a bold approach may be entirely different. The point of early strategy is to boldly face the issues and consider the best way to deal with it.