Click here to watch Left of The (Digital) Dial: Reflections on Building a Platform for 150+ Radio Stations

Over the last 3.5 years, I helped build Core Publisher, NPR's flagship digital product. We started with just an alpha version of core and a single content type; today, we have over 150 public radio stations on board. This case study will start by giving a brief overview of Core Publisher and its features. The talk will then reflect upon the lesson learned along the way, touching upon a number of issues:

• Building great teams that write great code
• The architectural decisions of a large Drupal project
• Addressing and managing technical debt
• The pros and cons of an agile process
• Choosing custom code vs. contrib
• The unique difficulties that Drupal presents to product owners
• Infrastructure DOs and DON'Ts
• A (relatively) brief list of regrets

Attendees should leave this talk with a broad understanding of the challenges involved in taking on a large Drupal project. (They should also leave with a healthy dose of fear and self-doubt.)