How Can I Help? A Playbook for Collaboration in Big WordPress Projects – – Why should I listen to this guy?

How Can I Help? A Playbook for Collaboration in Big WordPress Projects

Matt Johnson / @xmatt / alleyinteractive.com

http://xmattus.github.io/playbook-for-collaboration

• We are a full-service digital agency
• WordPress.com VIP partner
• Hiring!

Why should I listen to this guy?

• I've been through a lot of these projects.
• I've seen the process go well...and not so well.
• I'm here to talk positive, though!

What is "big"?

• Enterprise = built for an organization, not a person.
• More than one person involved for both client and vendor.
• Just a word. How do you define "big"?

Going Big with WordPress

Going Big with WordPress

Lifecycle of a Big WordPress Project

Discovery ↓ UX Design ↓ Visual Design ↓ Development ↓ QA ↓ Launch

Agile or Waterfall?

• Agile: sprints with short feedback-iteration cycle.
• Waterfall: each phase produces the next phase's deliverables.
• Truly agile process is challenging in new client builds.

Discovery

• A time to learn the entirety of a project's requirements.
• Chance to develop full and complete understanding of the client's context.

(also the title of Daft Punk's second album)

Discovery

How can we help?

• Listen, listen, listen.
• Ask questions to understanding the client organization first. Get specific about design and tech issues second.
• Learn the client's level of experience with big web projects.
• Manage expectations. Finalize the scope after the discovery instead of before, if we can.

Discovery

How can they help?

• Recognize our role as outsiders has benefits and drawbacks.
• Highlight unexpected internal politics and conflicts.
• Explain why the project matters to their organization.
• Give us the big picture first and the details last.

UX Design

• Creating a plan for the site's information architecture.
• Building wireframes to illustrate the likely layout and structure of the site.

UX Design

How can we help?

• Keep wireframes simple and visually non-suggestive.
• Stay close to the notes from discovery.
• Ask questions early and often.

UX Design

How can they help?

• Get stakeholders involved at the right time.
• Recheck assumptions against discovery.

Visual Design

• Crafting a style guide and visual direction for the site.
• Applying the style book to components in the wireframes.

Visual Design

How can we help?

• Design in the browser!
• Seriously though. Design in the browser.
• Emphasize rational decision-making and explain our reasoning.

Visual Design

How can they help?

• Contextualize for stakeholders.
• Remember that design is aesthetic; focus on the reasons for visual decisions.

Development

• Building a WordPress codebase to drive the site.
• Educating our client about its care and feeding.
• Migrating legacy content.

Development

How can we help?

• Put work-in-progress in its proper context.
• Be fully transparent about unexpected complexities.
• Start migration testing early.

Development

How can they help?

• Acknowledge the difficulty of building bespoke software products.
• See the process as a team effort more than an exchange of services for money.

QA and Launch

• Reviewing the finished product against the requirements.
• Tying up loose ends.
• Flipping the switch!

QA and Launch

How can we help?

• Plan ahead. Use a checklist.
• Be sympathetic to the client's timing and coordination needs.
• Reduce their need to double-post content.

QA and Launch

How can they help?

• Relax! :)
• Be honest about what features can be moved to "immediately post launch".

Launch is not the Finish Line

• Be a valuable partner to clients after the launch.
• Build a plan for the long-term health of our product throughout the project.