A horizontal portal platform like Liferay offers an amazing amount of possibilities, but the way you implement them can also influence the quality of your results. After 5 years of implementing and upgrading Liferay, this is the slides from a short presentation I did at a Liferay Meetup in Exeter in June 2014

1. Rob Walsh
Simply Change
simply change

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 Change Management for Portal Implementations
 Horizontal Portals like Liferay offer true
continuous improvement
 Continuous Improvement is hailed as the way to
work by many in the public sector (GDS, Digital
By Default etc.)
 Budgets, Control, Stage-Gates, Senior
Stakeholders, Project Management
methodology can fight this approach
but the truth is….

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A Few Good Men (1992)

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Delivery
Manager
Change
Manager

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 Programme / Project Manager
◦ Needs to focus on delivery tasks and medium term
plans
 Change Manager
◦ Must hold the vision and keep communicating step
gains as they are achieved
◦ The key is to feedback to project team how delivery is
perceived
 Product Owner
◦ Continuous delivery requires continuous prioritisation
◦ Don’t underestimate how involved this role needs to
be.

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 Being a great client is not easy.
 The best results I’ve seen have come from
iterative development – with client & customer.
 Pay close attention to the voice of the customer,
which might be different to voice of the client
 Portals offer great flexibility; but have a vision
and be clear how every step is contributing to
the vision
 Imagine if “it” is never “done” – Be really clear on
everyone’s definition of done

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 A marketplace of great implementers helps
 UK is maturing in Liferay implementation
experience
 There is more to it than Liferay or Agile
knowledge
 Most Change Management approaches assume
a finite change – From A to B, but we are going
A, B, C, D, E, G, K

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 What advice would you give a client about to
start implementing a portal?
Independent of
Supplier A vs
Supplier B
Not about CE
vs EE
What roles and
experience should a
client have on their
side?

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