I created  a separate post for these two topics as I intend to elaborate even further. The first few stages  (if you adhere to the six stage process) are a little tedious, you find yourself generating a lot of information wondering whether it will ever come to good use. I did it anyway.

Adam did pass on a sample website time-line but since I am reading Web Redesign 2.0/Workflow that works I really enjoyed the section, “Creating Schedules”. Interestingly, they made an overview schedule as well as a detailed one. I now understand why. The overview helps you to break the schedule into months (if longer) or weeks. The detailed one becomes a concise day-to day list of action items — as quoted in the book. Here it becomes important to keep track of scheduled date and the actual date when it was completed.

The other topic – Why goals now? Did we not just complete a preliminary questionnaire where most things come out clear? What if goals change?
Defining your goals is important. One of the reasons is you as a web designer/developer could have a different goal than your client and you may not even know it. Putting your goals and getting client feedback on these goal definitions will give you a clear blueprint on feasible and valid goals. How you can help the client facilitate and support the goal (or to what extent) is important and the link http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/TristanLoo5.html gives  a good idea what these  smart goals have to be:

The acronym S.M.A.R.T. outlines the set of criteria that your goal must follow in order for it to be a well-focused and achievable goal. That set of criteria is:

Specific: Do you know exactly what you want to accomplish with all the details?

Measurable: Are you able to assess your progress?

Attainable: Is your goal within your reach given your current situation?

Relevant: Is your goal relevant towards your purpose in life?

Time-Sensitive: What is the deadline for completing your goal?

It also is a good idea to create a priority list for which goals you want to achieve.