Sereno has been migrating a Drupal 7 intranet of several thousand content items from a menu-based system to one using taxonomy tags. We looked at coding the migration, but found a much quicker route using the Views Bulk Operations module (VBO) to crunch through the menu items, allocating each & every one anew taxonomy tag based on their pre-existing menu.
When organisations look to rebuilt their intranets, the obvious tactic - or 'strategic leap' - is to revolutionise design and structure and develop a brand new and improved experience for users.
I have recently switched development environment from Mac to Ubuntu. By and large this has proved a really positive experience as I can so closely match my development machine to the production servers we run. I ran into one sticking point during set up - configuring Netbeans to compile SASS. This ought to be straightforward and it is, although I couldn't find any clear documentation.
At Sereno, we use a range of tools to help us keep on top of Drupal development and to keep our clients actively engaged and aware throughout our projects.
At Sereno, we've been using Personas in projects for many years. In case you've never come across them before, personas are short character studies of the people who are going to use your website or application. They're usually fictionalised descriptions of real users, and they help you think through your design process from your user's point of view.
We have been using various approaches to lean or agile project management for some time now. With each Drupal project, we refine our processes. Or perhaps I should say, we simplify them with each iteration. So we use fewer software tools, we have fewer stages, our sign off lists get shorter. And this is making us much better at project management.
There is a gulf between managing learning and development in large SMEs (up to about 1,500 employees) compared to very much larger enterprise organisations but I suspect the gap is narrowing.
One of the strengths of Drupal is the energy and commitment of its community. I was reminded of this at the Drupal Science Camp in Cambridge last weekend.
Well organised with great facilities, the Camp offered sessions for newbies to seasoned developers/systems administrators. Oh, and a good night out in Cambridge, where we could get to know each other a bit better.
