When you spend time laying out the perfect plan for web accessibility and you don't involve the people who will actually implement it, you're just wasting your time.
When you create accessibility plans in isolation, you miss out on valuable insights from your team. Your developers, testers and content creators. Your team members often have hands-on experience with the challenges and practical aspects of making websites accessible.
When you exclude the people who will implement the plan from the planning process, you're creating something that looks good on paper, but is impractical to execute. It also leads to a lack of ownership and understanding among your team members. They will feel like they're just following orders rather than being part of the solution.
If what you want is to create an effective web accessibility strategy, get your entire team involved from the start.
Why?
Because we rarely commit ourselves to anything we don't see is in our interests. When we don't participate in creating the plan, when we have no input, we won't make the connection between what someone asks us to do and what we think will advance our own interests.
You can order your team to implement your plan. And they will comply. But if what you want is involvement and dedication, you need their commitment. And that, that you can only get when they have a say in how things are done and why.