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]
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 They didn’t follow it and they’ve been doing it for a long time and then the whole project quickly gets outdated.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
- 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.