Website Migration Masterclass

Website Migration Masterclass

Hartman Event 2012 @jdavidhobbs

20

Introductions

• Where are you in the migration process?
• Are you part of an internal web team?
• What is your role?
• Do you have one burning question?

@jdavidhobbs http://hobbsontech.com 2

Masterclass goals

• An initial estimate of manual effort
• Answer some questions you have
• A more interesting way to view migrations
• Ways to avoid surprises and train wrecks


Migrations are interesting!

Boring Interesting
Cutting and pasting - Searching for patterns
- Improving your content
One-time exercise - Setting up a long term program
Unending - Develop tracking metrics
Unimportant - Critical to success
Ramming in content - Exposing (non-migration)
problems

http://bit.ly/cm-interest


What is a website migration?
The transfer of
content, sites/sections, functionality, team, te
mplates, information architecture, and
relationships from one platform to another –
Website Migration Handbook v2


The transfer of

Not just content!


The transfer of
Every
migration
is
different!

5

Where are you?

Answer 10 questions to gauge where you
are and where you are going:

http://bit.ly/s-eval


Where are you on the graph?


You are moving

a weight


You are moving

a weight across a distance


You are moving

less distance is preferable


You are moving

less weight is preferable


You should control both


Also control quality


One of the most important controls you
have at your disposal is quality level, and
it isn’t just a simple yes / no toggle
switch


Some quality level questions
• What elements that currently are unmanaged
will be managed?
• How will links within the content be handled?
How will redirects happen?
• In general, what HTML transformation needs
to occur?
• How accurate does placement and tagging
need to be?
• What backend structure should be in place?
What default values will be used?

Important quality tidbits
• Even if you go with the incumbent team /
tool capabilities, you should ask yourself
what level of quality you expect.
• Talking about quality early avoids
expectation surprises when it’s too late.
• When reviewing quality
expectations, consider who is responsible
for attaining that quality level and also who
will test that this is done.


5

Example quality level

Anyone have a sample page for us to
analyze together now?


Standardization scale


DIVING IN: MANUAL EFFORT


Content migration: Automation

http://bit.ly/migauto

Don’t just consider the movement of content –
there are important steps before and after

Use a consistent
approach
to batch content http://bit.ly/panning

Except for small
sites, don’t do all
steps for each
content item

Content Handling Process

http://bit.ly/contenthandling


10

Example: Content Handling

• Anyone have a sample content type for us
to analyze together now?


Computing Manual Effort
Manual Effort for Bucket =
Content Count x
(Sort Effort + Place Effort + Edit Effort + Move /
Transform Effort + Enhance Effort + QA Effort)


15
Individual exercise: estimate
manual effort level

Estimate effort level for a major bucket of
content of your site

Sort Place Edit Move / Enhance QA
Transform

Effort per
page


15

Collaborative review
• Review your initial estimates
• Discuss opportunities to
streamline, mitigate against risks, and / or
increase quality


The transfer of

Many / most should be inventoried


The transfer of

Pay particular attention to content


Rethinking the Content Inventory
1. Exploration
2. Sources of Content
3. Site Inventories
4. Layers of Content
5. Topic Inventories
6. Quality
http://bit.ly/rethink-ci


Why control the weight

1) Migration is a perfect opportunity to
better focus your site and improve
quality by dropping content
2) It’s an opportunity to talk about your
content in general
3) Less weight is easier to migrate

Rules-based culling example

Define
Inventory Confirm Implement
Rules

@jdavidhobbs hobbsontech.com 36


Define
Rules

Example rules:

• If business focus is high, then edit
• If less than six page views in the last month, then drop
• If the page is in version 2, then move as-is
• If the page is in version 1 and more than 100 page views in the last
month, then as-is
• Otherwise, drop



Define
Rules


Distance is from where you are

If you already have a base station on the
moon, then moving to the next crater might
be easy.

If you live in a cardboard box, then moving
into an apartment down the street may be
difficult.

One aspect of distance


Controlling Distance
• Phase
• Modify depth of support
• Eliminate functionality entirely
• Concentrate on highest bang for the buck


Planning Process


Your vision
 Most stakeholders say it’s compelling
 Not just for small group
 Understandable by all
 Substantial improvement
 Can help prioritize
 Justifies migration
 Short
 Achievable
 Widely communicated

REMAINING QUESTIONS?


Summary
1. Set your vision
2. Inventory
3. Control quality
4. Control weight and distance
5. Estimate
6. Iterate


Thanks!

• New offering: Five Steps Program
http://hobbsontech.com/five-steps-
program


Website Migration Masterclass

More Related Content

Similar to Website Migration Masterclass (20)

More from David Hobbs Consulting (8)

Recently uploaded (20)

Website Migration Masterclass

Editor's Notes