A Perfect Launch, Every Time
Launches are tough on a new developer. Everyone remembers the lump in their throats around launch time; the rush to finish content, make final theme tweaks, adjust for sudden browser weirdness. As momentum picks up, the odd change request always appears, databases are slingshot hither and yon, while everyone scrambles to resolve merge conflicts like frantic cars at rush hour.
We emerge scarred but smarter, intent on making the next launch less painful. But with different teams launching different sites, it can be hard to establish an iterative process. Especially as new work accumulates in the backlog, we reap what we sow in technical debt from rushed launches, quick & dirty choices made under the gun, and unimplemented ideas from retrospectives.
Pantheon, however, has the same Customer Success team launching several enterprise sites per week, while assisting hundreds of self serve customers when they need a hand. Because we need to work effectively, we have developed the tools and process to ensure:
- Great Site Performance On Day One
- Fewer problems in the long run
- Clear Expectations from Informed Stakeholders
The session will cover other key areas:
- Preparing For Launch for the PM, Stakeholder, Developer & Sys Admin
- Auditing the Site for landmines, carnivorous acid pool islands, and deadweight
- Available metric tools and setting up logging to identify issues
- Load Testing with Jmeter to obliterate surprises with actionable results
- Building and utilizing a custom go-live checklist
This session is Platform Agnostic; whether you use PAAS, shared hosting, or wield your own hardware, PMs, developers, and clients will leave with new tools in their belt to launch with less agita. We will share some of our challenges and how we overcame them, and hopefully hear from you about how you overcame yours!