Project Management

why-drupal-projects-fail.pdf

Drupal is a flexible, feature rich web application platform that many thriving companies leverage as their cornerstone technology. Why, then, do some companies fail horribly when adopting Drupal? Are you having trouble meeting deadlines? Are your developers pounding their keyboards claiming that Drupal is garbage? Are your project managers running for the hills? If so, this session will identify common barriers that companies experience when first adopting Drupal and provide solutions on how to overcome them.

Intended audience

This presentation is intended for business owners, project managers, technical leads / architects, and sales managers. There will be little technical discussion other than high level concepts, as most of the reasons why Drupal projects fail have little to do with the low level technology.

Questions answered by this session

Why are my Drupal projects failing when so many other organizations are having success?

What are the common barriers that other companies are experiencing?

How have other organizations broken through those barriers?

How can I set my project up for success?

What can I do to set my development / design up for success with Drupal?

Drupal_On_a_Dime_DRAFT.pdf

You already know Drupal is capable of doing almost anything... for a price. But what about those looking to leverage Drupal on a tight budget and timeline? Is it possible to build a kick-butt site on a dime and deploy it at warp speed without sacrificing quality? (i.e. “Can I have my cake and eat it too?”)

The goals of this session are threefold:

1. We will debunk some of the common myths about Drupal design and development. For example, we’ll debunk the idea that custom built is always better.

Intended audience

This session is intended for people who are planning a project using Drupal and are looking for cost and time saving strategies.

Questions answered by this session

How can we make the most out of Drupal’s functionality on a small budget?

What are some strategies and best practices for selecting features?

When is it wrong (and possibly unnecessary) to pay for custom development?

What can I do to get the most value from a web designer?

Low-price, high-quality, fast. I’ve heard you can only pick two, is that true?

drupal_as_screenwriting.pdf

Finding the best way to approach Drupal site development can be a daunting task. Not only do projects vary widely in size, scope, and team composition, but there are also several different development process models to choose from. And with the size of Drupal projects growing larger every day, the cost of failure has never been higher.

Intended audience

This non-technical session is targeted at those looking to learn about different approaches to the process of developing Drupal sites. It's great for freelancers and developers/principals at smaller Drupal development shops, as well as those who are considering Drupal for use within their company or organization and don't know where to start the process. It's also useful for those who might be collaborating with someone else on a Drupal project. And of course, it's a must-see for anyone who enjoys storytelling and the movies!

Questions answered by this session

Why is having structure and process important to the success of a Drupal development project?

What are some best practices for delivering Drupal projects on time and budget that meet customer expectations?

How can I successfully incorporate agile processes into Drupal projects?

What are the elements of a successful Drupal platform?

How can I apply lessons from some of my favorite movies to my Drupal development project?

nlindLondonSessionV2-notes.pdf

In the old days, moving to Drupal often meant converting static pages or templates to Drupal nodes. Today, it is rare that we get to build a site from scratch. Reality is that most major Drupal projects are now migrations from other content management systems.

Taking on such a migration is not a trivial decision for an organization. There is a great deal of complexity in the reasons for migrating, but the decision is often not understood well amongst the various stakeholders.

Intended audience

This session is geared toward project managers and managers dealing with significant risk associated with migration from a legacy CMS platform to Drupal.

Questions answered by this session

How to set realistic expectations with stakeholders?

How to document an appropriate risk analysis and mitigation strategy in regards to a migration to Drupal?

You got "attitude" from legacy CMS users? Strategies on how to best deal with them.