Starting up the project to create a transitional site
As I mentioned in my last post, the first project will be to create a transitional site that will let me keep my older content, but also let me gather feedback on the new site I develop the final version.
In the past I relied mainly following a mental plan for developing and modifying my site, but to help create content for the new site, and based on lessons learned from my time as a BA and project manager, I plan to take and discuss a more analytical approach. So, before I begin, I’m going to create an initial plan based on recommendations from Prince2
- Identify the primary stakeholders and their key requirements.
- Decide what approach I’m going to take with the project.
- Document lessons learned from my past experience creating a website, what worked/what didn’t, and also look at industry best practices
- Identify my target audience, if I’m the only audience for the site, there isn’t much point in continuing, so what are the needs of these other, unknown users?
- The initial scope.
- Come up with possible solutions for how the site can be built, and if necessary based on the options, identify the remaining stakeholders and their key requirements.
- Pick a solution
- Plan for the implementation
Primary Stakeholders and their key requirements.
There are only two, myself, and my hosting company.
My key requirements
- I want to get something launched as soon as possible so I can start getting user feedback on content, design and technology for the new site as it is developed.
- Must be able to move my existing content to the new site, and be able to use 301 redirects (permanent move) so I don't break links from external sites.
- Must be able to control the look and feel of the site
- Solution must not be sole source, I don't want to be locked in to a specific vendor.
- Must allow me to backup my content, and the comments from users
My hosting site's key requirements
These requirements are based on my current hosting service, and may change if the desired solution needs different functionality.
- Must use one of the technologies support by the hosting service, currently Coldfusion, PHP, or ASP.NET
- Must not compromise the servers.
What approach am I going to take
I’m going to follow an iterative process, for several reasons:
- As I mentioned in my key requirements, I want to get something launched as soon as possible, an iterative approach will allow me to set up my site to meet my minimum requirements, and then add / enhance in the future..
- I’ve personally had more success and experience with an iterative approach than any of the other software development lifecycles, especially for web projects that have a habit of going on indefinitely.
- I will not be doing this full time, so if I wait until all I have the perfect site, the site will never get launched.
Lessons learned
- Focus on the content first, technology and design second. In the past I’ve started thinking about the design and technology too soon, and then had difficulty fitting the content in to the site.
- Pick the best solution, not simply the most interesting, or the easiest. In the past I’ve created my on solution for both amusement and knowledge, with my shift from web developer to business analyst and project manager, my web design skills are not currently up to date, so should I spend the effort on updating my skills, or simply use an existing solution (e.g. wordpress, drupal etc.)
Identify the target audience (the users)
My target audience are other business analysts, project managers and developers that I may be able to help, or that can help me as I learn and practice a variety of skills and techniques. So, in general my target audience is educated, technically savvy, and is looking for, and/or has knowledge in one or more of these areas.
The scope
The scope for this project is to pick a solution that will let me start posting documents like this so I can gather comments on feedback, and to port any legacy information I want to keep to the new solution. Any other enhancements,visual or otherwise will be treated as new projects.
Possible Solutions
For all of these projects there are three main options: build (custom), use an existing solution (buy, open source etc.), or create a hybrid (some customization some existing). I found in most cases it's the third option. But for this project I'm going to try and go with an existing, open source solution for the initial launch, so whatever I pick has meet the key requirements out of the box.
So my first step is to look at what solutions my hosting service provides.
- Joomala
- Kentico CMS for ASP.NET
- Mura for Coldfusion
- WordPress
Now, I could do a detailed analysis on the pros and cons of each, or look a different options, such as Drupal etc. But, I will leave that to the next project, for now I just need something to meet my minimum requirements.
I had heard of WordPress before, and decided to try it first, so looking again at my key requirements:
- I want to get something launched as soon as possible so I can start getting user feedback on content, design and technology for the new site as it is developed. YES, WordPress provides comments.
- Must be able to move my existing content to the new site, and be able to use 301 redirects (permanent move) so I don't break links from external sites. YES, I can back date the posts, so that the created dates will remain the same for my original content.
- Must be able to control the look and feel of the site. YES through templates.
- Solution must not be sole source, I don't want to be locked in to a specific vendor. YES, currently open source, and has a very large community of support.
- Must allow me to backup my content, and the comments from users. YES, I can backup the MySQL database.
Picking the solution
As you can see, I went with WordPress for my transitional site, I'm sure the other options could have also worked, and may still end up being my final choice. But until I've finished my requirements analysis for my new site, this will have to do.