ntc drupal day: early investment, better website

you should take before rebuilding your website

Lynn Winter Director of Projects GORTON STUDIOS

lynn@gortonstudios.com

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Assemble the project team 1

Define your project scope 2

Assess resource options 3

Contact potential partners 4

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Post your RFP 5

Evaluate the talent 6

Establish project protocol 7

Secure a long-term relationship

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ASSEMBLE YOUR

PROJECT TEAM

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Keep to an effective size

Understand the time commitment

Prioritize big picture

Be willing to hurt feelings

Work well in groups

Fill key team roles

Cat herder

The authority

‘NO’ person

Brand watchdog

Organization liaison

Content king

Technical lead

Worker bees

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DEFINE YOUR

PROJECT SCOPE

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Clarify your needs

Get stakeholders on the same page

Proof of business case

Ability to stop project as needed

Who is your organization?

Why are you rebuilding your website?

Who are your users?

What do your users need?

What is your priority?

What are your available resources?

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ASSESS RESOURCE

OPTIONS

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Employees

Contractors

3rd Party Solutions

More affordable

Learn site inside and out

Already hired – skip RFP process

Already have day jobs

Missing expertise

Difficult to get approval

Expert in the field

Purchase block of time

Outside perspective

Expensive

Work remotely

Missing institutional knowledge

Best-of-Breed

Available now

Can remove site bloat

Must compromise

Can quickly change

You are just a number

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CONTACT POTENTIAL

PARTNERS

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Cons, camps, and meet-ups

Drupal.org

Industry sites, blogs, webinars

Talk to your friends…and enemies

Ensure good talent responds to RFP

Survey of the landscape

Reality check on scope and budget

New ideas to consider

Sense of your project’s crazy

Consider sending a pre-interview

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POST YOUR

RFP

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Direct about scope/timeline/budget

Specify what is flexible & what isn’t

Exchange commitments in writing

Break large projects into pieces

Allow for conversations

Provide limited information

Specify every single detail

Speak only to the sales team

Ask for spec work

Require a labored response

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EVALUATE THE TALENT

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Using Drupal for 3+ years

Team active in Drupal community

Proven experience with features

Breadth of web services

Similar sized organization

Motivated by similar missions

Communications is easy

Willing to work AND drink together

Can agree upon a start date

Rate/budget is not a stretch

Process style works for your team

Sites looks and work well

Wide range of work

See similar features you need

Work with nonprofits

Genre overlap with some clients

Similar sized budgets and scopes

References check out

Proposal fits your RFP perfectly

Won’t maintain their work

Don’t respond quickly

Team growing rapidly

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ESTABLISH PROJECT

BOUNDARIES

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Scope limitations

3rd party integration and custom code

Brand changes

Determine budget parameters

Track the budget

Plan for a contingency

Discuss long-term costs

Prepare for a start date

Determine launch date drivers

Wait to create a full timeline

Discuss why timeline might shift

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SECURE A LONG-TERM

RELATIONSHIP

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Be their cheerleader

Listen to each other

Respect your commitments

Be honest, direct, and transparent

Remember – you are humans

Formalize new projects

Have fun!

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Figure out what you want 1

Meet good people 2

Be nice to each other 3

Live happily ever after 4

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slideshare.net/winterlynn