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ŽVPL 3.0 or how to “f* up” a web site relaunch [wwwh notes]

Here are my rough notes from lecture by Gregor Zalaznik and Davorin Pavlica, founders for ŽVPL at @wwwh with original Slovenian title of Spletne urice #100: ŽVPL 3.0 – kako “zaj***ti” projekt (ali ?esa ne narediti pri procesu prenove).

ŽVPL redesign took 3 years+. Here’s what they learned:

  • the project began and ran on beer. [presenters buy beer for whole audience]
    Booze
    Image by Drunken Monkey via Flickr

short history of ŽVPL

  • lots of drinking around Ljubljana until they’ve figured out that there could be a project from these drinkings
  • firstly it was ran on hand coded HTML each time. Frames and all that
  • then they’ve figured out some database stuff until it crashed whole thing once again and page went offline for next 3 years

how not to run a project

  • project manager should be one person only. Shared responsibility is totally foo.
  • prepare documentation in digital form. They’ve prepared most of the documentation around beer in different bars. Bartender arranged for a notes paper and pen and that was most of the the documentation.
  • pick a framework: CMS, framework, custom? Just choose one and stop wandering around.
  • decide roles and deadlines. It’s good to know this from the beginning so everyone knows what they should take care of.

production – or you can’t live from fame and fortune

  • release soon and release often. They didn’t follow it and they’ve been doing it for a long time and then the whole project quickly gets outdated.
  • they’ve changed 5 programmers in the lifetime
  • the project was pro bono and you easily lose team members
  • ideas without implementation are not worth anything
  • time is an issue
  • technology goes on very fast and unless you release soon and often, it runs you over and you keep reworking

Q & A

Tokyo Dome beer girl
Image by Mikael Dalkvist via Flickr
  • What project management software did you use? They’ve used Basecamp from 37 Signals.
  • iPhone version? It’s on the TODO. No deadlines.
  • How do you recruit people? We don’t. If someone is interested they will find you.
  • What does ŽVPL run on? On Union.
  • What was positive side of things? You learn and meet lots of people. It was nice to have a release out the doors and say that you’ve finished something. Secondly, you learn not to cancel too early and that it’s good to talk to like-minded people as they encourage you to finish the project.
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