- The document discusses the experiences of launching a website for a mental health organization before Christmas on a tight deadline. - An agile approach was taken using Gatsby, Kentico Kontent, and Netlify to develop a static, accessible, and content manageable site quickly. - It was a stressful experience for the team given the deadline and lack of initial designs, but through teamwork, communication, and flexibility in their approach they were able to successfully launch the site on time.

1. Experiences from launching
a site before Christmas
MMT TECH MEETUP –
JAN 2021

2. WHO AM I?
2 @ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
CONTACT ILESH
Experiences from launching a site before Christmas
MMT Tech Meetup
ILESH MISTRY
(CMS SPECIALIST &
KONTENT MVP)
@ileshmistry

3. WHAT I’LL BE COVERING?
3
• Introduction
• Website Requirements
• Initial Thoughts
• Our Strategy
• Development Approach
• Final Thoughts
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

4. INTRODUCTION
4
• Mental health problems are one of the main causes of the
overall disease burden worldwide.
• Mental health and behavioural problems (e.g. depression,
anxiety and drug use) are reported to be the primary
drivers of disability worldwide, causing over 40 million
years of disability in 20 to 29-year-olds.
• Major depression is thought to be the second leading cause of disability
worldwide and a major contributor to the burden of suicide and
ischemic heart disease.
• It is estimated that 1 in 6 people in the past week experienced a common
mental health problem
@ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

5. INTRODUCTION
5
• Mental Health Foundation –
“We all have mental health. But not all of us live with good mental health.”
• It allows you to make full use of your abilities and how you cope with work, families and life in
general
• However lots of us are finding it difficult and making sure we start talking about it and
prevention will help. Good wellbeing will help towards it.
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

6. INTRODUCTION
6
• I’m not a mental health or wellbeing expert
• I want to share some of the experiences I went through in getting a website live with my team
• We all have different roles with different views, circumstances and how we deal with situations
• Go through how we were feeling after each stage
• COVID 19 / Home schooling / Childcare etc…
• Gifs overload
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

7. WEBSITE REQUIREMENTS
7
• Client requirements…
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas
We want a website launched
before Christmas!

8. WEBSITE REQUIREMENTS
8
• Fixed deadline
• No designs - just MS Word document with content
• Starting from a blank canvas
• Content manageable by the client is preferred
• Accessible website
• New client recommended from an existing client
• Need to start asap!
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

9. INITIAL THOUGHTS
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

10. INITIAL THOUGHTS
10
• Internal catchups
• Spoke about the deadline
• Talked about the budget
• Spoke about the deadline again 😂
• Talked about the no designs
• Spoke about the deadline again 😂
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

11. INITIAL THOUGHTS
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

12. INITIAL THOUGHTS
12
• Looking at this, the deadline was tight
• Christmas is generally a quiet period, winding down
• No designs, so what should the site look like?
• How are we going to get it all done? Who do we need? Everyone’s on holiday/time off
• What can get out by when? Is there a priority?
• What additional costs do we need to consider?
• What's the architecture for this? - No Discovery Phase 😢
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

13. INITIAL THOUGHTS – HOW WERE WE FEELING?
13
• Nervous as we had a hard deadline,
which could not be shifted
• Confidence levels were at their testing points
• Stressful situation to be in for everyone
• Estimates for the amount of work required to deliver this were going over deadline – Overtime?
• Should we decline the project as this is going not be possible to achieve? And enjoy pre
Christmas?
• We all want to deliver something good to the client and can only do this by helping each other
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

14. OUR STRATEGY
14
• Agile approach
• Super lean with delivery
• Iterate only when we have delivered
• Super lean with user stories / agile practices as time was really of the essence
• Stand ups essential for the group, resolve any blockers, but also for the client to see progress
• Internal regrouping was a must. Keep checking on team’s morale and support each other
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

15. OUR STRATEGY
15
• Architecture needed to be established asap
• Not everything needs designing – Start designs
focusing on header and footer
Communication with UX/Design
• Licenses needed to be purchased
• Go for a static hard coded site then make it content managed, but would that not cost us more
time?
• Development approached needed to be nailed to get started
• Keep up communications
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

16. OUR STRATEGY – HOW WERE WE FEELING?
16
• The approach identified allowed us to get
more confident
• Team was established to know we were
all in this together
• Architecture and development approach
was agreed to help steer the development team
• Design strategy was set out so we know how the site would look
• Regrouping - as and when needed to make sure we keep talking and looking after each other
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

17. DEVELOPMENTAPPROACH
17
• Repository to store the code
• Static site approach
• Accessibility
• Content manageable
• Hosting
• Architecture
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas
Photo by Valentin Salja on Unsplash

18. DEVELOPMENTAPPROACH
18
• Architecture Diagram
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

19. DEVELOPMENTAPPROACH
19
• GatsbyJS - “React-based open source framework with
performance, scalability and security built-in”
• GraphQL is a way to access the data through query language
• Great for smaller sites, especially when you want to have a
quicker turnaround, but we’ve used it on larger sites too
• Experience using it / easy to setup
• SEO and Accessibility plugins
• Helped us with the next thing, which is to make it content managed
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

20. DEVELOPMENTAPPROACH
20
• Content manageable – Headless or Digital Experience Platform (all in one)
🤔?
• Kentico Kontent – “is a headless CMS that offers easy-to-use content
management tools for marketers while freeing developers to focus on
building online experiences.”
• Subscription costs involved – quick chat with Sales 🙌
• No installations required
• Needed something lightweight, perfect for content changes
• Plenty of experience with Kontent + Kontent MVP @ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas
Register with
Kentico Kontent -
90 days free trial

21. DEVELOPMENTAPPROACH
21
• Netlify hosting – “A powerful serverless platform with
an intuitive git-based workflow. Automated deployments,
shareable previews, and much more.”
• Subscription costs involved
• Easy to manage without Systems Team/DevOps, as we literally had no time resourced for them
• Git repository we went for GitHub (great for everyone 😁) – easy to setup
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

22. DEVELOPMENTAPPROACH – HOW WE WERE
FEELING
22
• I've had experience doing this for on my personal site.
So I was really confident suggesting this for us
• The developers were now excited about working on
this website
• Great technology stack for front end developers
• The individual products collectively all work seamlessly together
• Gatsby Kentico Kontent source plugin and starter site - helping us to get started
• This stack and way of working has been around for a couple of years so felt confident to use it
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

23. HIT THE DEADLINE? …YEP 👊🤔
23 @ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
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Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

24. FINAL THOUGHTS
24 @ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
• Accessibility first approach (don’t leave it to the end!) – saving us panicking at the end
• Great teamwork / Understanding each other / Trusting the team – supporting each other
emotionally
• Clients being understanding – took some pressure off us, but they still wanted a site at the end 😂
• Flexibility of the approach / Working Agile with going lean first – allowed us to get to market fast
• Having experienced members in these situations really help e.g. knowing the architecture will work
• Resolving blockers fast – checking how we are doing and talking it through
• Work life balance was affected, especially with flexible hours and deadline looming – It was tough
Common Accessibility Mistakes
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25. FINAL THOUGHTS
25 @ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
• We felt a lot of pressure along with the lockdown environment
• I know if I wanted to talk to someone I could and I did e.g. team member, HR team, family members
• I personally found a way to take my mind of the pressure and stress by spending some breaks with
my family e.g. Home schooling still has deadlines 🤔🤔♂️ but it’s a break from work 😂
• I know I could also reach out to the Mental Health website (https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/) and I
did check out a few of their tips!
• Getting fresh air / Exercising really helped me clear my mind to deliver this project
• Important to talk to one and another and not deal with deadlines/pressure on your own
Common Accessibility Mistakes
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26. THANK YOU
26 @ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
Register with
Kentico Kontent -
90 days free trial
CONTACT ILESH
ILESH MISTRY
(CMS SPECIALIST &
KONTENT MVP)
@ileshmistry
MMT Tech Meetup
Experiences from launching a site before Christmas

27. • Wellbeing at work
– Charlotte Murdin (http://bit.ly/charlotte_m)
• Mental Health hygiene for practitioners
– Beata Bikowska (http://bit.ly/Beata_B)
REMAINING AGENDA
27 @ileshmistry | #MMT_TechMeetup
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