how to build a great drupal team

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5 Steps to Build a

Great Drupal Team

(ebook link!)

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Guest speakers

Summer Swigart, Practice

Manager at AcquiaMeagen Williams, Program

Director, Acquia

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5 Steps to build your team

1. Understand typical teams, roles and job

titles

2. Define your requirements

3. Widen your net with your job description

4. Where and how to post jobs

5. Evaluating applicants

Blog series bit.ly/drupalteamblog

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Step 1

Understand team roles

and job titles

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Will Huggins, Zoocha – Dream Team

Role Typical tasks

A Drupal configuration

expert

Comfortable using Drupal; not

necessarily coding

A senior developer,

solutions architect

Planning, research solutions,

create demos, discover hidden

requirements

Theming / Front end

development

Develop the front of the site to a

design specification

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Small Teams

• Technical Lead

(required)

• Project Manager

(required)

• Junior Developer

• Themer

• Quality Assurance

Specialist

• What are

“small team”

projects like?

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Large Teams

Project Management Team

• Engagement Manager

• Project Manager

• Quality Assurance Specialist

Technical Team

• Technical Architect

• Technical Lead

• Senior Developer/Developer

• Junior Developer

• Themer

• What are “large team” projects like?

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An ideal ratio?

• 1 codebase = 1.75 people

=

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Devise your skill matrix

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Step 2

Define your requirements

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Avoid the laundry list

Job posting for Penny Arcade

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Defining requirements

• Meagen: How do you deal with a smaller

budget?

• Summer: How do you define the absolute

requirements?

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What is absolutely required

versus merely desired?

• Responsibilities include:

– Day to day tasks

• Candidates will need to demonstrate:

– Expected experience

• Desirable:

– What will set you apart from the rest

From a Previous Next job posting

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Role of training and mentoring?

• What training is available?

• What kind of mentoring on on-the-job

learning do you provide?

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Transferable skills

https://drupal.org/node/1245640

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Step 3

Widen your net – Write your

job listings

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Pitch your company to candidates

They want to know:

• What is the company

culture?

• Will I be working with

smart people?

• Are you building

something

interesting?

• Advice from Careers 2.0 team

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Example job listing outline

• Start off with the "30 second elevator

pitch" - Why this job and our company is

great.

• Next, define the roles and responsibilities

• Then list the must-have skills

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Selling the job

• Summer: The Drupal market is on fire –

how do you “sell” the roles? What are

developers looking for?

• Meagen: What patterns do you see?

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Attend community events – sponsor,

speak!

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Working with the community

• How do you engage with the community?

• Summer- how have you used case studies

at events?

• Meagen- what are community meet-ups

like?

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Step 4

Where and how to post jobs

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“g.d.o”http://groups.drupal.org/jobs

Drupal community site - Free listings

List in regional groups

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Be a good citizen!

• Look out for group guidelines

• Particularly “Please do not post job

adverts in this group”

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Weekly Drop

Newsletter

$40 to list

3300+ subscribers

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Careers 2.0

Connected to Stackoverflow

Invitation only to improve quality of

candidates

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OnSaavyConnect to freelancers

Review profiles

Add your company profile

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Twitter!#drupal

#drupaluk

Careful of “spamming” at events

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How do you hire?

• Summer – How do you hire?

• Meagen – How does your experience

compare?

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Staff Referrals

• Very important!

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Step 5

Evaluating applicants

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Use various methods for evaluation

• Interviews

• Code review

• Portfolio review

• Community involvement

• Case study presentations

• “Pair as interviews”

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“d.o” profile

http://drupal.org/user/number

Public profile for Drupal developers

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Ask about community involvement

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Gild.com

Gild is also aggregating data and helping employers “cast aside preconceived and wide spread biases,” for example about what universities people went to, and increase the chances of talented people finding their dream job. (Gild best practices, 13 Nov 2013)

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Screening

• Meagen – What advice do you have for

non-technical people to screen

candidates?

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Technical interviews

• Summer – How do you discover gaps?

What do you look out for?

• Meagen- What are some good interview

techniques?

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Using case studies

• Give an actual problem, relating closely to

real situations.

• They present a solution to a small team.

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Any Questions?