Matthew Saunders discusses various challenges that can arise when managing client projects and development teams. He describes examples like clients who call early in the morning complaining about issues that are actually problems with their internet connection. He also discusses the difficulties of projects with multiple decision makers who cannot agree or clients who spend too much time brainstorming without defining requirements. Saunders advocates for adopting aspects of agile methodologies like having defined timeboxes, iterative development, and collaborative requirements gathering to help address these types of issues and bring more structure and flexibility to projects.

1. Herding the Cats
Matthew Saunders
Director of Client Services
ATEN Design Group
Saturday, June 29, 13

2. Who am I?
Saturday, June 29, 13

3. MatthewS d.o
j_matthew_s IRC
saunderm - G+
@creech - twitter
Matthew’s personal blog - dogstar.org
matthew@dogstar.org
matthew@atendesigngroup.com
Saturday, June 29, 13

4. Drupal since 4.6
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5. Why Do We Do
What We Do?
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6. We NEED
Project
Management
for Successful
Outcomes.
b4b2 on Flickr
Saturday, June 29, 13

7. 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.
Saturday, June 29, 13

8. I had a 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.
Saturday, June 29, 13

9. 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!"
Saturday, June 29, 13

10. The client doesn't know what they want,
so they spend endless hours in meetings
with you "throwing ideas around". Then,
despite the 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.
Saturday, June 29, 13

11. make for nightmares for
us, our partners (internal
and external),They bring
us to an Open Sourced
“Arkham”... and we feel...
Lack of Planning
Lack of Communication
Lack of Process
Lack of Focus
Differences in CULTURE
Saturday, June 29, 13

12. make for nightmares for
us, our partners (internal
and external),They bring
us to an Open Sourced
“Arkham”... and we feel...
Saturday, June 29, 13

13. ... the “Call of Druthuhlu”
Saturday, June 29, 13

14. Bring Calm from
Chaos.
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15. star5112 on Flickr
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16. Saturday, June 29, 13

17. daveknapik on flickr
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18. 3 Methodologies
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19. anyjazz65 on flickr
Saturday, June 29, 13

20. Cowboy or Extreme
• Highly informal
• Focuses on Stakeholders
• Can be used in very unpredictable projects
• Can be excellent for rapid prototyping
Roy Montgomery
on flickr
Saturday, June 29, 13

21. n.hewson on Flickr
Saturday, June 29, 13

22. Waterfall
• Highly Formalised
• Focuses on Requirements
• Inflexible
• Planning is Frontloaded
Saturday, June 29, 13

23. Can Feel
Uncontrolled When
Inevitable Change
Occurs
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24. SheltieBoy on Flickr
Saturday, June 29, 13

25. Agile
• Defined Timeboxes
• Iterative Development Methods
• Incremental
• Collaborative Requirements and Solutions
• Rapid and Flexible Responsive to Change
• Self Organizing Teams
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26. The Agile Hybrid
Approach
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27. Saturday, June 29, 13

28. Saturday, June 29, 13

29. Saturday, June 29, 13

30. Some Kinds of Roles
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31. Project Management
Acts as Scrum Master
Leads Pointing Stories
Protects Dev Team from Distractions During
Coding
Ensures that the Team Doesn’t Make Mistakes
Manages the Schedule
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32. Product or UX
Owns Backlog
Personas, Epics, and Stories
Answers questions that Clarify Business Needs
Demos Software at the End of Sprint
Saturday, June 29, 13

33. Developers
Self Organizes Selected Stories
Decides What Can/Can’t be Completed in
the Timebox
DEFINES the Implementation of
Business Needs
Executes
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34. This Next Model Works Well
For Projects with a Long
Timeline
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35. A Sample Timebox Timeline
60 days - Business Requirements
40 days - User Stories, Wireframes,
Comps
20 days - Beginning of Current
Development cycle
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36. Saturday, June 29, 13

37. Saturday, June 29, 13

38. These Three Overlap
To Cover A Single Timebox
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39. Saturday, June 29, 13

40. Demos and Retrospectives
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41. Daily Scrums
What did you do in the last 24 hours?
What are you doing today?
What are your blockers?
Saturday, June 29, 13

42. Variations on a Theme
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43. Saturday, June 29, 13

44. Well Oiled Machines on flickr
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45. IRC
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46. Google Docs
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47. Saturday, June 29, 13

48. Faster, Better, More
Awesome
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49. Caro's Lines on Flickr
THANKYOU
Saturday, June 29, 13