Nobody is a Drupal expert. Between theming, custom module development, third-party integrations, deployment, and everything in-between it’s impossible to know everything. However, being a Technical Consultant for Acquia, almost every week I fly to a new client with their own unique set of technical challenges, personalities and experience.

This session is a collection of greatest hits from my first 52 weeks as a Drupal road warrior joining random stages of a project for only a week at a time. This experience has given me a unique insight into what makes for functional teams, and the common traits shared by dysfunctional projects. It is appropriate for teams new to Drupal who want a strong start to their project while avoiding common pitfalls.

From this session you will learn:

• The best starting point for structuring a team for a Drupal project.
• Issues that set up projects for failure before they even begin.
• What separates great Drupal builds from bad ones.
• The best ways to handle tough conversations not just within a team, but also with other teams such as security and infrastructure.
• The top ten mistakes clients make when starting to work with Drupal, ranging from ignoring caching to not using version control.