Summary: Seattle Drupal barn raising June 2011
This is a wiki page. Add details, especially in the LESSONS LEARNED section.
WHAT:
- Build a web site for a non-profit organization in a 2 day sprint using Drupal 7.x plus contributed modules.
- The website is for Seattle Genealogical Society, a membership organization with a large research library. SGS members hold special interest group meetings. SGS sponsors a wide range of events for members and the public. SGS is operated by volunteers and depends on dues and donations.
WHY:
- SeaDUG members wanted to do community outreach to help a non-profit and to invite new members into the Drupal community.
- Seattle Genealogical Society needed an up-to-date CMS website to replace its static website.
WHEN:
- Barn raising was held June 11-12, 2011 (a weekend).
- Planning was at bi-weekly or weekly meetings from Jan-2011 to June-2011.
WHERE:
- Barn raising: Amazon South Lake Union Campus - Seattle
- Drupal planning meetings: Greenbean Cafe - Greenwood, Seattle
- SGS planning meetings: SGS Library - 6200 Sandpoint Way, Seattle
WHO:
Seattle Genealogical Society (SGS):
- Board of Directors: reviewed and approved project proposal
- Website committee - gathered requirements for barn raising: Annette, Dawn, Ginny, Jaime, Michelle
- Event catering: performed by Cary
Seattle Drupal User Group Project Team (SeaDUG)
- Annette Dwyer (SGS liaison, design, theme)
- Eric Johnston (DrupalKata and videographer)
- Jared Stoneberg (Evangelist)
- John Walling (minutes, web site setup, IA, venue arrangements, publicity, infrastructure)
- Kevin Audleman (requirements, specs, IA, library catalog, barn raisng moderator)
- Robert Stumberger (requirements, specs, IA, barn raising moderator)
- Timani Tunduwani (theme and IA)
Amazon - South Lake Union Campus
- Facility coordinators: Erma and Lori
Event attendees (Evenbrite registration)
- Saturday: 20 registered plus 2-3 drop-ins
- Sunday: 18 registered plus 2-3 drop-ins
- Drupal mentors: Jared Stoneberg, Rick Hawkins, Josh Kopel, David Hazel, Hemant Saraf and the SeaDUG project team.
- SGS website planning committee directed and performed content migration.
Our appreciation goes out to
- Forum One: Food and refreshements purchased by Shannon Lucas (a Good Samaritan)
- Amazon: Free facilities for event, wifi, and a/v (performed flaswlessly)
- SGS: Catering by Cary (labor intensive and superbly executed)
- SeaDUG members: who contributed time for website planning and construction (contributing great gobs of their valuable time)
- Drupal newcomers: who thought it was worth giving up a weekend for the learning experience.
HOW:
- 20+ volunteers constructed a new SGS website with Drupal 7.x on a free account at DreamHost.
- Barn raising teams were assigned for site area construcion, for entering content, for theming, for module installation, for site infrastructure, for adding user accounts, for setting permissions and roles.
- Project planning involved 6 SeaDUG members and 5 SGS members over a period of 5 months.
- A variety of tools were used: DrupalKata.org, Google Docs, WebEnabled.com, DropBox.com, MockingBird.com, Mind mapping, etc.
LESSONS LEARNED:
BEFORE BARN RAISING
- Gather detailed requirements and specifications for the barn raising.
- Select a client who has the time and resources to gather detailed requirements and has skills to administer a Drupal website.
- Having a legacy website helps the client document new requirements.
- Staging the content, design and theme before the barn raising is important to save time.
- Discuss and mention the barn raising plans at every opportunity in Drupal group meetings.
- Keep the planning process open and invite participation by the Drupal community.
- Have regular planning meetings.
- Give client help with gathering requirements.
- Make sure client leaders understand the project objectives.
DURING BARN RAISING
- Divide barn raising tasks to give maximum independence to teams, e.g., sections of the website.
- Limit critical tasks to specialized teams: module installation, site config, theming, permissions.
- Having one large space for everyone helps with communication but may cause key people to get side tracked.
- Hourly summaries are not needed - 2 or 3 reviews each day keeps barn raising on track.
- Handouts for site navigation, layout and content examples help orient people new to the process.
AFTER BARN RAISING
- Have followup presentations at Drupal group meetings to fix unresolved issues.
LINKS:
- http://drupal.org/project/drupal Drupal core
- http://drupal.org/project/modules Drupal modules
- http://groups.drupal.org/seattle SeaDUG
- http://groups.drupal.org/node/144134 SeaDUG announcement
- http://seattlegenealogicalsociety.org/ SGS production site
- http://seattlegenealogicalsociety.org/Barn-raising Barn raising notes
- http://seattlegenealogicalsociety.org/contributed-modules Contributed modules
- http://test.seattlegenealogicalsociety.org/ SGS test site for updates and module evaluatation
- http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting-nonprofit.html DreamHost nonprofit account for SGS web site
- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~waseags/ SGS legacy web site
- http://drupal-barn-raising.eventbrite.com/ Eventbrite: Barn raising registration
- http://drupalkata.com/sgs/ Project planning notes and minutes at DrupalKata
- http://drupalkata.com/sgs/minutes meeting minutes
- http://sgs.dev3.webenabled.net/ Theme development
- https://www.dropbox.com/ content staging - account closed
- http://tinyurl.com/sgs-master-spreadsheet Google - spreadsheet for planning - content & user stories
- https://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/#wnneej8/mBiAW WireFrame