project management asheville

Taming the ProjectAn Agile Approach

Matthew Saunders matthew@atendesigngroup.com

Saturday, August 23, 14

Hi, I’m Matthew Saunders

atendesigngroup.com association.drupal.orgatendesigngroup.com @Creech

Aten Design Group, VP Project ManagementDrupal Association, Board MemberWriter, dogstar.orgd.o, MatthewSG+, saundermIRC, j_matthew_s

Saturday, August 23, 14

atendesigngroup.com @atendesign

We design, build and support websites for organizations doing good work all around the world.

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Project Mangement Why Do We Do What We Do?

atendesigngroup.combit.ly/AshTame

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We NEED Project

Managementfor SuccessfulOutcomes.

b4b2Saturday, August 23, 14

I had a client...• a couple of months ago call me at 6:30 in the morning

yelling and screaming because his site had been down for over an hour. I drag myself out of bed, get to the computer and his site comes right up... I told him to try to get on Google. Guess what? According to him Google was down too. I politely told him to call his internet provider because that was down and once his internet came back up to use it to search for a new developer.

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I had project...• that had multiple decision makers. They wouldn't

move forward unless they all agreed on any one point. And they couldn't agree on anything.

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I met a drunk guy...• "Oh, you make sites? Let's make something like

Facebook and earn alot of money! I'll come up with ideas and you make it.”

• Me: “Got any suggestions?”

• Drunk guy: “Yeah, we need something like Facebook so we'll be rich! You go make it!"

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I had a client...• who didn’t know what they wanted.

• They spent endless hours in meetings with you "throwing ideas around".

• Despite warnings that they were consuming their contracted hours in this fashion, insist that they shouldn't have to pay for the time because the site still hasn't been built.

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Lack of...• Planning

• Communication

• Process

• Focus

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and Cultural Differences

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make for nightmares for us, our partners (internal and external), They bring us to an Open Sourced “Arkham”... and we

feel...

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... the “Call of Druthuhlu”

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Bring Calm from Chaos.

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star5112

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daveknapik on flickr Saturday, August 23, 14

3 Methodologies

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anyjazz65 on flickr

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Cowboy or Extreme

• Highly informal

• Focuses on Stakeholders

• Can be used in very unpredictable projects

• Can be excellent for rapid prototypingRoy Montgomery on flickr

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n.hewson on Flickr

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Waterfall

• Highly Formalised

• Focuses on Requirements

• Inflexible

• Planning is Frontloaded

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Can Feel Uncontrolled When Inevitable Change

Occurs

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SheltieBoy

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Agile

• Defined Timeboxes

• Iterative Development Methods

• Incremental

• Collaborative Requirements and Solutions

• Rapid and Flexible Responsive to Change

• Self Organizing Teams

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Some Terms

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Time BoxSaturday, August 23, 14

SprintStuart Grout

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Epicmendhak

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User StorySaturday, August 23, 14

Scrum

Eoin Gardiner

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Client Check In

dmosiondz

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Roles

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Project Manager• Scrum Master

• Lead Pointing

• Defense from Distractions

• Helps team avoid mistakes

• Manages Schedule

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Product or UX• Backlog

• Personas, Epics, Stories

• Clarify Business Needs

• Demos

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Developers• Self Organize Stories

• Communicates expecations of what can be completed in a sprint

• Defines how business needs should be architected and executed

• Executes

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IA/UX/StoriesSetting up the project for success

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Information Architecture• Content Audit

• Content Map

• Site Map

• Wireframes

• User Stories

• Drupal Architecture

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Design• Design Studio

• Mood Boards or

• Element Collage

• Comps/Mockups

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A Sprint Model

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The Breakdown• 1 Week of Planning and Organizing

• 2 Weeks of Development

• 1 Week of User Acceptance

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Aten Small Teams• Team Lead/Developer

• Back End Developer

• Front End Developer

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Well Oiled Machines

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IRC

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Google Docs

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Jira Workboard

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Basecamp

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Axure

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Harvest• We book our time in Harvest against

tasks that match our epics

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Great ProcessFasterBetterAwesome

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Thanks!

Matthew Saunders @CreechMatthewS

Saturday, August 23, 14