Leveraging Drupal®: Getting Your Site Done Right

Chapter 11. Full Swing Agile Approach to Drupal Development

This is actually the best part of the book, and the most representative of real-world work. Distracted by upgrades and other wonderment and a lot of stuff going on, you need to get back on track and bring the project to successful closure.

Now, at what stage is the project? How do you even know? Well, that's the reason for the Agile approach ... a kind of Google Map of your project: Pan out for the big vision, zoom in to any area of detail you can easily get your head wrapped around, and break off, just a single task to get done and make another step forward. That way, you never get that jackrabbit-in-the-headlights paralysis feeling as complexity overwhelms you and you don't know which way to turn.

This may seem obvious, but it is the single most frequent cause of delays in website application development, as complexity and contemplation and infinite choices rob your time and energy. With Agile, it's like spreading all the cards on the table, taking a moment to put them in order together with the client, then using good old-fashioned worker discipline to reduce implementation to the process. This process is like plucking a card, getting it done, showing it off, feeling good, and then taking another card and another until it's all done.

So this chapter is a road that's going to lay itself, as you take a card, one at a time, and get it done. To work through the chapter, take the code from Chapter 7, and work through all the ...