Drupal Project Management: Specific Challenges and Approaches

Let me guess: you're a Drupal developer (temporarily) turned into a... Drupal project manager! Or maybe a PM new to Drupal, facing the challenge of your first Drupal project management assignment?

Have I guessed it?

Now the questions roaming in your head right now must be:
 

• What Drupal project-specific challenges should I expect?
• How should I address them?
• How should I approach the Drupal developers, site builders and themers involved?
• What questions should I ask them at each phase of the project?
• And which are the stages of a Drupal project management process more precisely?
• How do I collect accurate and explicit requirements for my Drupal project?
   

“Spoiler alert”: managing a Drupal project the right way isn't so much about using the right project management modules and “heavy-lifting” tools. It's about:
 

• understanding the specific challenges that Drupal projects pose
• understanding the specific phases of the process
• empowering the people in your team to capitalize on their Drupal expertise within the given time frames and according to your client's objectives
   

Now, here's an insight into the process of managing a Drupal project. One shaped as a list of predictable challenges and their most suitable solutions:
 

1. Proper Planning: Get The Whole Team Involved

In other words: defining objectives and setting up a final time frame with the client without getting your team, too, involved in the process is like:

Throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping that it would just... stick somehow.

They're the Drupal experts, you know...

Therefore, getting the Drupal developers, themers and site builders engaged at this stage of the project is no more than... common sense.

They're the (only) ones able to:
 

• give you an accurate time estimate for developing and implementing each functionality/feature
• tell if certain of the requested features can't be delivered
• identify interdependencies and conditions
• provide you vital information about the Drupal-specific architecture and the project-specific development process
• … information on what components to take, whether new contrib modules need to be developed to support certain functionalities etc.
   

Get your Drupal team involved in the planning and preparation process and strike a balance between their valuable input, the client's objectives, and time frames.
 

2. Tempted to... Micromanage? Empower Your Team Instead

Yet, resisting temptation won't be easy. Especially if you're a former Drupal developer now turned into a Drupal project manager.

You'd just die to get your hands dirty with code, wouldn't you? To supervise, closely, how every single line of code is being written.

Refrain yourself from that...

Instead, do keep your focus on the bigger picture! And, moreover, empower each member of your team to... shine. To excel at what he/she's doing. 

That instead of obsessing over details, getting everyone on their nerves and making them doubt their own skills:

By focusing on each one of the small steering wheels, you'd just lose sight of the larger mechanism that's a Drupal project.
 

3. To Tell or Not to Tell: Do Encourage Your Team Members to... Tell

Hiding the dirt under the carpet, from the stakeholders' eyes/ears and having members of your team remain silent over certain bottlenecks in the project will only act as 2 “Trojan horses”.

They'll lead your Drupal project to... failure.

Instead:
 

• dare be honest with the client and inform him/her if you run the risk of a delay 
• encourage your team to be open with you and with their teammates when they hit sudden challenges, unexpected issues
   

By:
 

• hiding
• ignoring
• “genuinely” underrating
   

... issues detected in the development process — instead of getting them “exposed” and dealt with —  you're only sabotaging the Drupal project.

And now speaking of encouraging good communication within your team, how about creating a dedicated open forum for them to use? This could be the “place” where they'd share any issues that they will have detected in the project.

Or challenges that they face and can't address by themselves.
 

4. Juggling with Resources, Timeline, and Unforeseen Events

I'm not going to lie to you about this one: keeping the balance between staying flexible and being capable to assess risks is not going to be easy...

Unplanned issues will strike, new requirements will come to “jeopardize” this balance, unexpected changes will need to be accommodated under the same time frame...

Should you keep yourself rigid and inflexible to all changes, sticking to the initial plan?

Or should you “assimilate” all the incoming requirements and additions to scope with the risk of a project delay?

And that of overburdening your team with unscheduled tasks...

Can't help you with a universal answer here, one that would apply to all Drupal project management scenarios. It's you, together with your Drupal team, who should be able to estimate:
 

• the changes' level of complexity
• the project delay (if it's the case)
• the chances for these additional tweaks to turn into contractual changes
   

5. Drupal Project Management Is 90% Good Time Management

And it all comes down to:

Breaking your Drupal project down into small, manageable tasks. 

Tasks that can be easily turned into goals and objectives:
 

• daily objectives
• weekly objectives
• and so on...
   

Efficient Drupal project management, even if we're talking about truly complex ones, is all about making it... manageable.

About ensuring that the lists of tasks are logically structured and (most of all) time framed!

Needless to add that this strategy acts as a motivation-booster for your team: 

Just think about it: with every ticked off task, each team member can visualize the project's progress in... real-time. A progress that he/she, too, will have contributed to.

The END! These are the Drupal project-specific challenges that any project manager dealing with this CMS faces, accompanied by their life (reputation)-saving solutions.