I'm Leaving You: The Risks of Dumping Your Old CMS for Drupal and How to Manage Them

Business and Strategy

I’m Leaving You: The Risks ofDumping Your Old CMS for

Drupal and How to Manage Them

Presented by Nicole LindGroup Vice President, nlind@phase2technology.com

Why this session?Surprise dangers lurk!

Unrealistic expectations

Drains on resources

Difficulty with change

Unrecognized risks

The goalsSet better expectations

Provide a risk assessment framework

Minimize surprises

Bring sanity to a potentiallystressful experience

Understanding theSituation:The LANGUAGE

Doublespeak is language thatdeliberately disguises, distorts, or reversesthe meaning of words.

Doublespeak may take the form ofeuphemisms (e.g., “downsizing” for layoffs),making the truth less unpleasant.

From Wikipedia(paraphrased)

UnderstandingDrupalDoublespeak

Implication:

Your site is practicallyalready built!

Truth:

You’re going to need plentyof development work to getthe custom look andfunctionality you have inmind.

“There’s aModule forThat!”

UnderstandingDrupalDoublespeak

Implication:

“Of course the designs arefinal”. Just a few tweaks areexpected and shouldn’timpact functionality.

Truth:

Even small design changescan introduce significantlynew functionality.

“Final designs”

UnderstandingDrupalDoublespeak

Implication:

The new CMS will becompletely customized, butshould act like shrinkwrapped software withdocumented manuals and nobugs.

Truth:

Your Drupal CMS is oftencustom-made. It will requirea debugging period andcustom documentation.

“Flexibility”

UnderstandingDrupalDoublespeak

Implication:

Drupal is free! Of course it’sgoing to be cheaper!

Truth:

Every project is unique.While Drupal is free, thedevelopment, support, andhosting of your project isnot. Savings (and costs) willvary.

“Cost Savings”

UnderstandingDrupalDoublespeak

Implication:

There are Drupal developerseverywhere!

Truth:

Hiring and maintainingDrupal talent is gettingharder and harder no matterwhere your organizationoperates

“There’s talent allover the world”

Understanding theSituation:The PEOPLE

Tribalism is a strong Cultural orethnic identity that separates one

member of a group from theother members of another group.

From Wikipedia (paraphrased)

Understanding theDrupal TribeMembers

Evangelist

Passive-aggressive

Openly hostile

Know-it-all

Apathetic

Protector

Chief

Common tribemembers of aDrupal CMSmigration

Evangelist

DescriptionBrought Drupal to theorganization or pushed for amajor over hall of the existingimplementation

CaveatsDepending on how they “sold”Drupal (which is often an oversellwith Drupal Speak terms) to theorganization will determine howto handle the rest of the tribemembers.

What to do with themManage expectations and bringeveryone back to reality

Evangelist

Passive-Agressive

DescriptionExpresses aggression in non-assertive (i.e. indirect) ways

CaveatsAlthough not a very vocal tribemember, the passive aggressiveoften uses subversive emails andconversations to pass blame andavoid doing their job

What to do with themPoint out the inconsistencybetween their words and actions

Passive-Aggressive

Openly Hostile

DescriptionOpenly antagonistic to theproject. They will be the firstperson to say I told you Drupalwas a bad idea

CaveatsOften motivated by fear and theyoften feel they should be leadingthe project effort

What to do with themAssign an important job in theproject to this person orcompletely eliminate them. Thereis no sitting on the fence orshades of grey

Openly Hostile

Know-It-All

DescriptionOften a very experiencedtechnical person but they arenew to Drupal.

CaveatsConfusion drives this personand they will complain about theinadequacies of Drupal but notreally know Drupal

What to do withthem

Train these people as soon andas much as possible!

Know-it-All

Apathetic

DescriptionThe apathetic will sit on thesideline and make no meaningfulcontribution to the project

CaveatsUsually much of the editorial staffis apathetic and unfortunately theydon’t say much about the CMSuntil the new product is alreadybuilt

What to do with themPreview as much of the early buildthrough demos and test accounts

Apathetic

The Protector

DescriptionKeeper of the budget andsustains the migration effortthrough resourcing

CaveatsSometimes unclear who thismember is and how muchpower they have

What to do withthem

Make this tribe member yourfriend. Take them for dinner anddrinks. Schmoozing!

The Protector

The Chief

DescriptionThe mover off all things relatedto the migration effort.Understands the strategy,language and players associatedwith getting the job done

CaveatsNot always well liked and mayneed to be hard on other tribemembers

What to do withthem

Empower this tribe memberwith real authority

The Chief

Understanding Changein the Drupal TribalCommunityKey Considerations

People are scared.

Tough changes can make peopleredundant, threaten jobs and require the restructuring of theorganization

Speed of change matters.

Slow is usually easier, but manyweb projects require urgency andspeed to market

People react differently.

Some are more impacted bychange and sometimes do notcope well; may act out, taking ontribe roles of the openly hostileor passive aggressive member.

Change is inherently risky.

It should be managed with careand professionalism

Migrating is InherentlyRisky and What To DoAbout It:Evolving People and LanguageThrough Risk Assessment

Identifying the most commonrisks

No Drupal experience

Unknown dependencies

Scheduling

Double data entry

Unidentified block behavior

Old legacy system has no clearmigration path

Lack of clear content mapping

Cost

Schedule

Performance

Risks Potential Impacts

Survey users andstakeholders for additionalpotential risk

Don’t forget members of thetechnical team (includingdevelopers, system administrators andhosting partners).

Take time to understand editor andcontent contributor processes andexpectations for the admin.

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Setting up a risk trackingmethod

Many formats available on the web;Google “risk analysis” or “riskassessment” for ideas.

Most often includes tracking risk forLikelihood of occurring and Impact onthe project; impact could be financial,timeline, or quality of the outcome

Likelihood definitions

Likelihood description Percentage of possibility

Almost certain > 95%Likely 65% to 95%

Possible 35% to 65%

Unlikely 5% to 35%

Rare < 5%

Impact definitionsImpact Description

Very serious An event whose occurrence will impact the project’s cost, schedule orfeature set so severely that the project will be terminated.

Serious An event that seriously impacts (more than 10%) project budget,feature set and/or schedule; alternately denotes serious loss in requiredfunctionality that will be unacceptable to business stakeholders.

Moderate An event that, if it occurs, will cause a modest change to the project’stechnical architecture, a modest loss of some non-critical functionality,and/or a modest loss of some non-critical operational performancerequirements. Minimum acceptable requirements will beachieved. Budget and/or schedule loss will be less than 10%.

Minor An event that, if it occurs, will cause small cost (and/or schedule) increasesthat, in most cases, can be absorbed by the project. Little to no lossof required functionality.

Sample risk assessmentRisk Likelihood Impact

Unnecessary project hours (budget)spent waiting for stakeholderapprovals

Likely Minor

Emerging requirements afterdiscovery completed which couldimpact timeline, budget and quality

Likely Moderate

Hosting solution is not “approved”as of yet

Almost certain Very Serious

No clear migration path of existingcontent from old CMS which putstimeline at significant risk

Almost certain Serious

Creating risk mitigationplans for Drupalmigration projects

Common sense plans thathelp reduce risk

Set clear and measurable goals

Conduct a project discovery

Provide as much training anddocumentation as budget and scheduleallows

Setting clear andmeasurable goals

“We are moving toDrupal because wewant our CMS to bemore flexible.”

“We expect to save alot of money movingto Drupal.”

“One of the maingoals of this projectis to double ourtraffic the firstmonth after launch.”

Unclear Not Specific Unrealistic

Setting clear andmeasurable goals

Goals need to be specific and realisticto help set expectations for success ofthe project.

Goals also focus our attention onhigher priority activities versus lowerpriority activities.

Project discovery…Helps stakeholders and implementation

teams to understand the real needs of themigration project

Is ideal for fleshing out the unknowns(risk) of a project.

Can be as short or long as needed, butshould be done regardless

Training & Documentation

Budgets and timelines generally don’t coverthe real outlay for training anddocumentation…which is a risk.

More efficient deliveryCreate inline documentation as much as

possible. Saves time and money relative to creatingdocumentation in two places.

Regularly demo functionality for stakeholders.These sessions can be recorded and used for futuretraining and documentation needs.

Maintain a central repository for all projectdocuments.

Putting everythingtogetherRisk Likelihood Impact Mitigate Plan

Unnecessary project hours(budget) spent waiting forstakeholder approvals

Likely Minor No

Emerging requirements afterdiscovery completed which couldimpact timeline, budget andquality

Likely Moderate Yes Implement ticketing system thattracks changes to features.System should be able toidentifying bugs fromimprovement request

Hosting solution is not“approved” as of yet

Almostcertain

VerySerious

Yes Push launch timeline out 3 weeks to account for delay.Communicate to all projectstakeholders

No clear migration path ofexisting content from old CMSwhich puts timeline at significantrisk

Almostcertain

Serious Yes Start looking for outside vendorsthat specialize in data migration

Distributing and publishingthe risk and mitigation plans

Initial risk assessments should be placed in theproject discovery documentation (if one isconducted)

On-going risk assessments should be shared withproject stakeholders through meetings, email,scrums, etc.

Once new risk are communicated the documentshould be updated and saved to the centraldocument repository (i.e. Google docs, Basecamp,etc.)

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Final thoughtsBe patient

Understand the people and language of thecommunity moving to Drupal

Be sensitive to how other tribal membersdeal with change

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#1 Key Takeaway

Identifying and managing risk isthe most effective way to evolveyour community and successfully

migrate to Drupal

Questions?

Thank YouQuestions

52

What did you think?

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http://denver2012.drupal.org/program

Click the “Take the Survey” link.

Thank You!