As an agency, you have two major responsibilities to your clients at the onset of a project.

1. Ensure that the organization has done the research and planning required to define the scope of the project.
2. Ensure that the responsibilities between your agency and the client are clear, and that everything is accounted for between both parties.

To the second point, it's critical to define early on what is your responsibility. These questions are critical to defining your responsibilities:

Usability:

• Who will conduct user research?
• How much access will you have to analytics and data?
• Who will be available and required from the organization to provide input from stakeholders?

Content:

• Who will be conducting the content inventory and assessment?
• Who will be producing new content?
• Who from the organization will be approving any content?
• Who will be populating or migrating the content?

Creative:

• What brand assets can the organization provide to facilitate design?
• Will content be ready before design begins?
• What steps and approvals are required?

Technical:

• Will the agency be entirely responsible for development, or will the organization's IT team be involved?
• What integrations are required for the site?
• What are the development milestones and stages?

Training:

• What will the training program and schedule be?
• What training materials and collateral will be required?
• What will the ongoing role be of your agency?