A Spooky Drupal Migration Story with Janez Urevc

Staff Reporter

The latest episode of Tag1 Team Talks featured Janez Urevc sharing a migration story from his past in the spirit of Halloween. This tale revolved around a challenging project that involved migrating a media organization from its proprietary in-house CMS to Drupal, a transition met with resistance from the existing development team firmly rooted in their custom system.

Despite grappling with technical complexities and facing internal opposition, the migration managed to overcome these daunting obstacles through an incremental approach, wherein both the old and new systems ran in parallel. Astonishingly, they went live just before a national parliamentary election, deftly handling a surge in traffic without encountering major hiccups along the way.

However, the eerie part of the narrative unfolds when the project's fate is revealed - it was marred by team dynamics, internal divisions, and overly optimistic leadership. The collaboration between the internal team and the consultants brought in for the migration unraveled, ultimately leading to burnout and the disbandment of both teams. This account underscores the critical need for managing user adoption, fostering collaboration, and addressing leadership challenges in migration projects, offering a cautionary tale to organizations embarking on similar journeys.