Transcript Brian VanDeventer - Gilbane San Francisco

Enterprise Web Content Management
Path to developing a Competency Center
Presented To:
Presented By:
Gilbane Conference
Brian VanDeventer
IT Manager, Web & Application Development
The Hartford
Hartford Technology Services Company
Date: June 18, 2008
Agenda
 Background
 Current State
 Our Timeline
 Key Elements of a Competency Center
 Collaboration
 Benefits of a Competency Center
 Future State
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Background
 Using Fatwire’s Content Server 6.3
 Started using WCM in 1998 (Futuretense)
 Rational: technical resources were being used to maintain sites
instead of developing, expanding new functionality.
 Current Environments in US & Japan
 Rendering 80+ sites (internet, intranet, extranet)
 Multi-language sites: English & Japanese
 Supporting 100+ content providers in US, Ireland, UK, and Japan
 Integrated with Sun One Portal, Autonomy (Verity), and “home grown”
applications
 Leveraging Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for integration
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Current State

Core Team
 Lead Architect
 Three Developers (looking for 4th)
 Offset team with external consultants
 Core Skills: JSP/Java, SQL, XHTML/CSS, XML
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One Training & Support Staff
 Answers questions & provides guidance to Content Providers
 Teach Content Providers to fix their own issues
 Has become the face to our customers
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One Temp Staff to populate sites (as needed)
 Seeing an increased demand for us to populate & support sites

Optimized, Scalable Environment
 1998: started with 2 app servers
 2008: 11 app servers

Proven Methodology/Process for developing
 In 2007 we made the first change to our process since 2002

Do not have mandate that we must be used for managing web content
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Work directly with key Business Stakeholders (primarily Marketing/Communication teams)
Stakeholders influence IT organizations to integrate applications
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Work is prioritized by a project’s strategic importance & business commitment ($)
Team’s reputation keeps us working at 100% capacity
 Business areas do not want to go through IT process for simple content updates
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Our Timeline
 1999 - 2000:
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Proof of Concept: intranet site that was statically maintained
2 servers
1 Architect & 1 developer
6 month project (no pressure)
 2000-2001
 Invested in a more robust environment (tiered architecture)
 Develop call center application (8 month project)
 Laid foundation for all future development
– Same core asset types built are still being used today
– Built assets & templates to be flexible
 Developed first pass at a methodology & process
 2002
 Hired 2nd Developer
 Built integration to feed content to Enterprise Portal Environment
 Built first set of “standard” code for rendering sites
 Our first pass at implementing design patterns & reusable templates
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Timeline continued
 2003
 Hired 3rd Developer
 Built Highly Available Environment
 2004
 Upgraded Environment
 Product had a new architecture
 Rebuilt first call center application (newer version of software)
 2005
 Built Environment in Japan
 2006
 Doubled the size of our Environment
 2007
 Standardized HTML/CSS
 Saving between 5k – 15k per project
 Ability to develop sites in days
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Key Elements of a Competency Center
 Funding
 Initial investment required for hardware & software
 Staff
 Dedicated Staff
 We are the SI’s
 Proof of Concept
 Developers learning on the job
 Start small (first site should not be high profile)
 Collaboration w/ Other Groups
 Rely heavily on Design Team
 Reputation
 Win over the business departments
 Deliver cost effective solutions
 Provide excellent customer service
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Key Elements (continued)
 Design Patterns
 For web delivery, leverage css
 Work within the tool
 Minimize Core System Customizations
 Allows upgrades with little rework
 Thoroughly document all changes to core system
 Strong emphasis on Reusability
 Robust Asset Types & Templates (look to future)
 Don’t push a square peg in a round hole
 If the project doesn’t fit the tool, look for other ways to implement
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Collaboration (Extended Team)
 User Center Design
 Responsible for information mapping, wire-frame, usability, &
design elements
 Portal Team
 Responsible for enterprise corporate portal
 Infrastructure
 Responsible for “care & feeding” of hardware (not software)
 Other IT organizations
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Benefits of a Competency Center
 Best Practices
 Develop Best Practices around coding, documentation, etc..
 Consistent and Disciplined methodology
 Experience
 Each person can specialize in different areas
 Lessons learned
 Decrease Development Time = Decrease Costs
 Behind the scenes, most sites are 80-90% of the same code base
 Example – we recently purchase a company. We migrated 13 sites into our
WCM env. in less than 2 weeks.
 Value added
 Advanced knowledge of WCM broadens the range of solutions that are
beyond the apparent capabilities of the product
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Future
 Developing more services to allow additional
extranet applications & software packages to
leverage WCM
 Web 2.0
 Mobile Delivery
 Document Management
 Deployment to the Web
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