When embarking on a Drupal project of any scale, communication and documentation are vital to success. Regardless of development methodology (Agile, Waterfall, Spiral, etc), defining and documenting outcomes are key to setting expectations and guaranteeing success. Whether it's a 5-page microsite, a 1+ year engagement, or a short 2 week sprint, requirements and specifications will help build consensus around in-scope functionality, map functionality to Drupal components, and provide developers with a road map of what they will be delivering. The end result is clearly setting expectations between the client, end-users, and developers. It will also dramatically increase the accuracy of project time estimates.
In this session we discuss best practices in project communication and documentation to support successful Drupal projects. We explore the meeting ground between business requirements and Drupal development specifications, discussing how to best communicate and translate expectations between the two. We discuss several real-world projects, both good and bad, reviewing documentation including:
- Business requirements
- User requirements
- Integration diagrams
- System architecture
- User stories
- Epics
- Functional requirements
- Performance requirements
- DevOps architecture
- Progressive enhancement and how to deal with "older" browsers
- Technical specifications
- Publication workflows
- Structured vs. unstructured content
- More
The goal is that attendees walk away with practical, real-world examples of how requests, issues and challenges have been communicated and dealt with on both small-and-large-scale Drupal projects.
This is not a technical presentation but it does cross the boundary between technical and business. It is intended for IT directors, project managers, technical leads, business analysts, SysAdmins, sales people, technical decision makers, and website administrators. Regardless of your role, you will walk away with knowledge and examples of how to communicate project requirements and specifications to those around you.
Comments
Get well!
I hope the original speaker gets better. Any chance we could get rj's slides when they're feeling better. I'm very interested in communication and documentation best practices. Feel better ;)
Original slides available?
I am also interested in the slides for the originally-scheduled presentation. While I learned some great things in the replacement session, I am very interested in some of the topics that weren't covered. Thanks!