ReliefWeb & Development Seed:
Building Status, Design, and Planning
                            Thursday, September 2nd
Agenda
• Concepting & Strategy Update (Eric G.)
• Build Progress Update (Eric G.)
• Drupal 7 Update (Eric G.)
• Lunch
• Design Review (Eric G.)
• Build Plans (Alex B.)
• Taxonomy/Content Update (Mark M.)
• Project Management Overview (Ian C.)
• Planning for Launch & Support (Eric G.)
• Q&A (All)
Development Seed’s Summer Focus:

 • Concepting + strategy
 • Technical architecture
 • Design
 • Prepping for Drupal 7
Development Seed’s Summer Focus:

 • Concepting + strategy focusing on making it:
  • Easier to add content to the site
  • Easier to find content + jobs on the site
  • Easier to see all types of content the site
     offers
   • Balancing expanding audience w/ building
     for power users
Development Seed’s Summer Focus:

 • Technical Architecture
  • Going Drupal 6 vs. Drupal 7
  • Key modules needed
  • Importing content
  • Integration with the jobs site
  • Making everything wicked FAST!
Development Seed’s Summer Focus:

 • Design Goals
  • Focus on the content
  • Light = FAST!
  • Clean
What is done:

 • Concepting and strategy
 • Technical architecture ~70% (need to
   present plan in official writeup still)
 • Designs ~ underway
 • Key module refactoring
 • Drupal 7 technical base prep
What is NOT done:

 • Drupal 7
Drupal 7

 • It is late.
Yes.... that really says October 27th
... and we think that date is optimistic
What does a Drupal 7 slow down mean?

 • Drupal 7 is _still_ the right choice.
 • We are actively building on Drupal 7 for
   you, in its pre release state.
 • This is messing with our timing badly
 • ... and costing us a lot more.
Drupal 7


 • Under development for 3 years
 • Primary base for the next 2 years AKA you
   will have access to the latest new tools by
   being on the latest platform
 • Reducing total costs of ownership by
   reducing an upgrade cycle.
 • More attractive for developers to work on.
Timing and cost plans:

 • Development Seed is burdening almost all of
   the Drupal 7 costs on this project.
 • This is long term strategic investment for the
   larger international development space.
 • We are adjusting our build plans to try to
   stay on target. (Alex will speak to this)
 • We need to slip delivery till December 3rd,
Design: this is not another website
Design process: going agile
Agile Design

 • There are still mockups.
  • mockups ensure:
    • style/theme
    • general layout
    • information architecture
 • The designs need to be flexible though.
How to make design flexible

 • Go with the grain of the software
  • Reducing total costs of ownership via
     upgrades.
  • Taking advantage of built in workflows.
 • Experimenting and playing.
 • Things will need to change
Design: this is not another website
My ReliefWeb
Keeping it simple to help
users know where to go
River of fresh updates
Where events are happening
Hilight key emergencies
Hilight other key content on ReliefWeb
format for LOTS of updates
Visualization tools
filter in context
in-context power filtering
Real time mapping of reports
Show key emergencies +
make it easy to find countries
Better integration of jobs
add context to countries
feature key reports
trying to better integrate
emergencies w/ countries
integration with
data.worldbank.org
river of updates
which can be visualized
and filtered by everything!
Building reliefweb.int
How do you normally build a web site?
Plan

Build
Migrate
Review
Adjust
Launch
You’ll be waiting for us
Light build + early migration
         to move up
    reviews + launch
Plan

Build
Migrate
Review
Adjust
Launch
Plan
Light build


Build
Migrate
Review
Adjust
Launch
Plan
Light build


Migrate | Build
Review
Adjust
Launch
Plan
Light build


Migrate | Build
Review
Adjust
Launch
Step I
  DS builds light shell site
(won’t need all of Drupal 7)


   Delivery: 3rd week of September
Step 2
RW migrates content
   (DS helps)


  Delivery: End of October
Step 3
  DS builds out site
(parallel to migration)


Delivery: First week of November
Step 4
  RW reviews




Delivery: mid November
Step 5
DS delivers adjustments




Delivery: First week of December
Step 6
  Final QA and launch




Expected launch date: mid December
Plan
Light build


Migrate | Build
Review
Adjust
Launch
The Process
Agile = Working Code, Fast
Why Agile?
✓ Prioritize Launch Date
✓ Ensure Top Quality on What Is Delivered
✓ Collaborate to Manage Scope & Risk
Result: Very Tight Site Delivered ASAP
Fixed Elements
• Content Migration (including Jobs)
• Core Site Functionality
• New Design
• Drupal 7
• Stable Launch in December
• THEN Additional Phase 1 Scope
Gathering Feedback
Feedback Process
• All Ideas Welcomed & Captured Online
• Overall Backlog Triaged with Mark McCarthy
• Priority Ideas Moved to Phase 1 Backlog
• Remaining Ideas Saved for Phase 2
What is Phase 2?
Phase 2
• New Aggregation Solution
• Community Features
• ReliefWeb “Apps”
• TBD?
Result: Very Tight Site Delivered ASAP
ReliefWeb’s Involvement
ReliefWeb Tasks
September:

• Confirm Design (early Sept.)
• Confirm Migration Plans (early Sept.)
• Confirm Hosting Plans (mid Sept.)
• Confirm Overall Architecture (late Sept.)
Outcome: Solid Plan by End of September
ReliefWeb Tasks
October:

• Do Basic Migration into Drupal (early Oct.)



Outcome: Content in Drupal by end of October
ReliefWeb Tasks
November:

• Review Content in New Site (mid Nov.)
• Training on Using New Site (mid Nov.)


Outcome: Migration Done by end of November
ReliefWeb Tasks
December:

• QA Final Site (early Dec.)
• Launch Site (mid Dec.)


Outcome: New ReliefWeb Live in December
Risks
• Launching Before Christmas
• Support Plans

ReliefWeb | DevSeed Meeting | 03 Sep 2010