A project plan for agile Sitecore deployments — A template
By: John Revay
Designing your project deployments in an agile- inspired development format allows for greater flexibility. We offer up a template agile Sitecore project plan for you to download and use for your own projects.
Agile software development’s rise in prominence over the past ten years or so has fundamentally changed the face of how we approach project management here at nonlinear.
The evolution from the waterfall methodology, characterized by autonomous development and siloed department decisions, to a more iterative process embracing the cyclical nature of agile gives teams an entirely new perspective on project development. With its ability to reduce risk, increase productivity, inspire more trust between clients and developers and engage employees, a more agile approach to development has become a staple here at nonlinear.
We have adopted the methodology for a number of our Sitecore implementations and are excited to share some of the tidbits of knowledge we have learned along the way. Please take some time to read over our Sitecore agile development observations and then be sure to download the Microsoft Project agile development template we have includedin this post.
More on the nonlinear agile approach
When innovation is key, the unknowns are numerous and you’ve aligned on whether you are schedule, budget or scope driven, developing iteratively with lots of communication and review between the development process and the user/stakeholder community is a proven winner. Looking to determine whether agile is right for you? Simon Wardley has proposed a great framework for matching agile or waterfall to project conditions.
One of the most practical considerations for adopting an agile methodology is its capability to secure extended stakeholder consensus. Though agile does embrace feedback and change, it does not mean that different stakeholders can weigh in at any time and change items for the nth time. Instead, by combining genuine senior executive buy-in and timely feedback with a solid governance structure for determining decision makers, the entire team, executive and otherwise, will work effectively, saving time and money by avoiding costly reworks.
A few lessons learned
At nonlinear we tend to be pragmatists and have learned some characteristics about Sitecore projects that strongly suggest tweaks or additional consideration from most textbook agile models
- Sitecore is foundation rich, which means a lot of behind the scenes structural work is done up front and then user visible elements burst in a bloom of functionality later on. Visually compelling early victories require thought and planning.
- Simultaneous visual design and component development can be inefficient. Unless your developers are equally proficient in Photoshop and UX best practices, and design review can happen any time, we’ve found having user stories and design run ahead of development will reduce people sitting on their hands, and ultimately speed up production.
- You can spend a lot of time modeling, prototyping and developing sublimely sophisticated content approval publishing workflows. Resist the temptation. Keep it simple initially. It will most likely stay that way.
We hope you get value out of the template and are happy to discuss any questions you might have.
