Development & Profit in Project Management

Day:

Sunday

Time:

5:00p

Room:

ET 204

Profitability is never a guaranteed outcome.

Drupal is a powerful CMS that developers use to give clients the web products they
need, with all of the features and functionality they want. Drupal can provide all this at
a lower cost than HTML or other platforms, but using Drupal is no guarantee of
profitable project.

Using Drupal along with an Agile Development Process is an excellent way to
eliminate much of the wasted efforts found in a traditional Waterfall Development
Process. By comparison, using an Agile Methodology can reduce cost by as much as
half, or provide up to twice as much product for the same budget! However, Drupal and
Agile alone are not enough to ensure a profitable outcome.

Experienced project management along with a senior-level development team can
successfully use Drupal and Agile to start from a position of great strength on any
project. Adding proper management techniques to work-flow and production will help
move any project toward potential profits, but even the best team cannot overcome
fatal flaws in scope, schedule, or budget.

What are the fundamentals needed to keep costs under control during a project? How
do you bid projects against a client's budget properly? How do you address scope,
schedule, and budget to start off in the best position possible to achieve a win-win
outcome for your client and yourself?

In this session we’ll discuss how to address these questions and answer them
successfully, with specific attention to how these answers may change along with the
size of the dev team or the project; some key management fundamentals that have
business value far beyond project management alone. We’ll address some specifics of
the Agile process, the development process, how to construct the development team;
understand the relevant economies of scale for projects and development that can
help dev-shops large and small identify the best range of projects to target in order to
bring home profits and grow their business.

Examples will be taken from attendees to discuss as specific case studies.
Attendees will participate in a discussion of: