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.

The End


Want to work on projects like this?
We're hiring.

info@alleyinteractive.com