DrupalCon Portland 2013: VELOCITY & VISCOSITY: TRAIN-WRECKS AND UGLY-BABY MEETINGS
Channel: Drupal Association
Date: 2013-05-24

Drupal's great. But why is it so hard to have velocity but not viscosity around clients, dev teams and projects? This thrashing leaves many clients leaving Drupal and many Drupalers hating clients. Clients and projects drive Drupal and so let's develop better methodology for implementing world-class Drupal sites, have profitable dev shops and happy Drupal customers.

TRAIN-WRECKS FOR DEVELOPMENT: If you're losing money on projects, wishing the client's expectations were more realistic, burning out your team, have too many bugs and constant scope creep; this might be an interesting and valuable 50 minutes. Development shop margins are thin; but great process, training and client management make all the difference.

TRAIN-WRECKS FOR CLIENTS:If you're going into a project or have one already off the rails, this workshop will help develop a strategy for success. Learn how to prepare, document and go into a development project as a partner and collaborator.

EXCUSE ME, BUT YOU NEED TO KNOW YOUR BABY IS UGLY:This year, I've had no less than five of these uncomfortable and unfortunate conversations on a rescue project. Sometimes we're the second, third, fourth development team and no one has told the client the truth about their site, their own shortcomings as a client and why their project is failing. We'll discuss red flags, project containment and how to successfully triage a project back to health.

CLIENT CALAMATIES:Got stuck with a bad Drupal site? There's a better way to work with the development cycle. With some thoughtful planning around Client Wrangling, Project Wrangling, and Risk Assessment, projects can be successful.

LOSING VISCOSITY & GAINING VELOCITY: In this fun, collaborative and interactive session we'll share, dissect and discuss:

what makes a good client
homework for everyone
what makes a good project
plan, plan, plan, develop
risk assessment, risk management
calling a flag on the play, triage and pulling the plug
minimum viable product
agile, waterfall and hybrids
downfall of design-driven development
downfall of client-driven development
the magic of matrices for everything
Drupal can be still be fun and clients can become great collaborative partners with just a little structure.

Much thanks to great friend, thinker, synthesizer and guru, Johnnie Fox (http://drupal.org/user/672052) who co-brainstormed this session several years ago.