Percussion Projects: Approaches & Strategies or I can't believe it's not XSL

Introduction Odin has been involved in many successful Percussion CMS projects (Rhythmyx) Percussion Experience Listening to the customer Flexibility High level project methodology Agile Development Key decision points

Upgrade? Faster Development Improved Content Authoring experience Publishing Personalisation Improved Deployment

Identify Business Case and Key Requirements Before starting a project there needs to be business case. Listen to the users and developers Understand the issues they are facing  Prioritise issues and identify big wins  What issues will be corrected by upgrade  What issues 'may' be corrected by upgrade Work out where the bottlenecks are in the process

Manage expectations Understand the 'current issues‘ fully Communicate the what will definitely be resolved Focus on the new functionality and positives Ensure Project sponsors and end users have same Ensure resourcing is planned fully before starting UAT throughout the project - so people get a feel for the changes. Prepare for the worst, but expect the best

Planning and Resourcing Type of Project Section development of site  New Content types and templates  Manual/Automated Migration Upgrade  Platform upgrade  Template code change  Automated Migration  Manual Migration Rebrand of site  New templates  Code reuse Constraints Resource Availability Budget Timelines Dependencies to other projects Approaches Phased Approach / Big Bang Mentoring Development team / Outsource all development Post Implementation planning

Reducing risk Customisations Identify 'custom' areas that could cause issues Communicate with Percussion May be better ways of implementing Environments Tiered Architecture (Development, Test, Pre-Prod, Production)  Should comprise fully separated set of components Virtual Servers  Flexibility to increase capacity  Initial High cost – but savings over longer term  Simpler rollback and cloning facilities Agile Methodologies Requirements Development planning and implementation Testing Rollout timings Weekends/Evenings allow most flexibility

Starting the Project Analysis of current system Initial Requirements Initial Documentation Issue Management Development Source Control

During the Project Project Management and Leadership Documentation Issue Management Continuous Integration testing Development Flexibility Do not be afraid to change approach if it is not working

Go Live/Rollout Steps Be positive Aim to upgrade over weekends Prepare an Implementation Plan Ensure the end users are prepared Rollback

Post Implementation Steps Measure performance increases Project Review Project Warranty Post implementation Support In house development team supplemented by Odin on- demand consulting and Percussion Support Outsource all Application support to Odin On-demand Consulting and Product Support to Percussion