EHVENCONSULTANTS
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Our Agenda Today

  1. Introductions
  2. What we do
    1. WordPress websites
    2. WordPress Care Plans
    3. DevOps and Web IT
    4. Content development outsource
    5. Supplemental application and infrastructure solutions
  3. How we do what we do
    1. Application architecture
    2. Implementation and Care Processes
    3. Automation
    4. Quality
    5. Paradigms
    6. Predictability
    7. People
  4. Wrap up
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Introductions

Mihal Ehven

CEO

WordPress implementation and design, content development, marketing, business strategy and administration

  1. 16 years of app, web, and marketing
  2. Group Health, Microsoft, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
  3. HIPPA, NLG, From BB to WP
Introductions

Mihal Ehven

CEO

WordPress implementation and design, content development, marketing, business strategy and administration

  1. 16 years of app, web, and marketing
  2. Group Health, Microsoft, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
  3. HIPPA, NLG, From BB to WP
Introductions

Mihal Ehven

CEO

WordPress implementation and design, content development, marketing, business strategy and administration

  1. 16 years of app, web, and marketing
  2. Group Health, Microsoft, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
  3. HIPPA, NLG, From BB to WP
Introductions

Mihal Ehven

CEO

WordPress implementation and design, content development, marketing, business strategy and administration

  1. 16 years of app, web, and marketing
  2. Group Health, Microsoft, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
  3. HIPPA, NLG, From BB to WP
Introductions

Mihal Ehven

CEO

WordPress implementation and design, content development, marketing, business strategy and administration

  1. 16 years of app, web, and marketing
  2. Group Health, Microsoft, Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
  3. HIPPA, NLG, From BB to WP
Introductions

Gilad Ehven

CTO

WordPress feature development, technical design, infrastructure and workflow automation, training

  1. 28 years years of web and infrastructure
  2. Microsoft, DMR (now Fujitsu), MSNBC
  3. Y2K, PTPCS, Workbench and Jetpack
Introductions

Gilad Ehven

CTO

WordPress feature development, technical design, infrastructure and workflow automation, training

  1. 28 years years of web and infrastructure
  2. Microsoft, DMR (now Fujitsu), MSNBC
  3. Y2K, PTPCS, Workbench and Jetpack
Introductions

Gilad Ehven

CTO

WordPress feature development, technical design, infrastructure and workflow automation, training

  1. 28 years years of web and infrastructure
  2. Microsoft, DMR (now Fujitsu), MSNBC
  3. Y2K, PTPCS, Workbench and Jetpack
Introductions

Gilad Ehven

CTO

WordPress feature development, technical design, infrastructure and workflow automation, training

  1. 28 years years of web and infrastructure
  2. Microsoft, DMR (now Fujitsu), MSNBC
  3. Y2K, PTPCS, Workbench and Jetpack
Introductions

Gilad Ehven

CTO

WordPress feature development, technical design, infrastructure and workflow automation, training

  1. 28 years years of web and infrastructure
  2. Microsoft, DMR (now Fujitsu), MSNBC
  3. Y2K, PTPCS, Workbench and Jetpack
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What We Do

WordPress Websites

Built The WordPress Way!

  1. Assembled from modular building blocks we call Features:
    1. One or more plugins
    2. Custom feature code
    3. SASS-managed CSS
    4. Versioned configuration
    5. Documentable directly within the WordPress Admin
  2. Implemented as Child Themes, Plugins, or MU-Plugins (where applicable and possible)
  3. Built on modern and secure filesystem practices
What We Do

WordPress Care Plans

Full stack maintenance in all stacks: Server stacks, Application stacks, and user skills

  1. Hosting
  2. Licenses
  3. Weekly, monthly, and quarterly updates:
    1. Tested upgrades (because untested upgrades are downgrades)
    2. Basic database cleanup and optimizations included (premium options available)
    3. Optionally accept Child Theme features
    4. Client-facing updates pass through Staging (and, optionally, through additional remotes as required by project stakeholders)
  4. Ongoing “Viability Testing”
  5. Provisioned environments replaced with every LTS release of Ubuntu
  6. Price lock and increase cap guarantees
What We Do

DevOps and Web IT

True ecosystem knowledge and skill at your service!

  1. Ongoing security, performance, SEO, and other actionable advisories
  2. 877 number for actual emergencies
  3. Optional workshop offerings for your staff (and your clients)
  4. Optional developer and designer support sessions
    • No need to separate from agencies or freelancers you already like
    • We'll help you retain talent you enjoy
    • We'll empower you to recruit affordable contributors so you can lower overall cost of ownership
  5. Unlimited DNS updates
What We Do

Content Development Team

Expand capacity to enable your WordPress project, and your business, to grow without the expense of finding, evaluating, interviewing, hiring, and training specialized full-time help:

  1. General 24/7 content support team for blog posts, pages, WooCommerce products, menus, widgets, and more
  2. Blog team plans (starting at 2 posts per month), audience research, ongoing content planning, and WordPress-savvy publishing
  3. Dedicated copywriters create effective content that frees your existing staff from tasks their schedules may not allow
  4. Dedicated designers produce professional art in formats that are ready for your WordPress project and various ancillary interests

Also available: Dedicated Virtual Assistants for simple website updates, social media, scheduling, basic customer service, and more.

What We Do

Supplemental Application and Infrastructure Solutions

Augment WordPress projects and support the organizations that run them with industry trendsetters in critical business functions that are best managed outside the typical WordPress website.

  1. Matomo for an independent analytics alternative to Google Analytics
  2. Mautic for powerful and cost-effective marketing automation
  3. NextCloud and Seafile for internal (yet available everywhere) storage and productivity apps
  4. Discourse for online discussion forums
  5. Suite CRM for Customer Relationship Management
  6. WireGuard for wholly owned Virtual Private Network
  7. Dedicated WordPress subsites for separately hosted heavy tools like E-Signature apps, Help Desks, Booking and Calendar solutions, internally managed Composer servers, and more
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How We Do What We Do

Application Architecture

Separation of Concerns: Decouple and layer system segments for best possible balance between cost and SRP to:

  1. Improve maintainability of existing features
  2. Simplify implementation of new features
  3. Enable DRY workflows for developers and users
  4. Lower overall cost of ownership

Instrumentation: Integrate tools and techniques used by top projects; gain community compatibility and support:

  1. Manage dependencies with Composer
  2. Develop with Virtualenv, Mailhog, and env parity
  3. Configure, provision, and deploy with Ansible
  4. Manage app layer on all servers with WP-CLI
  5. Maintain in Dev and beyond with top-shelf tooling

Independence: Eliminate datacenter/hosting Vendor Lock while retaining the freedom to use safe vendors at will:

  1. Host on modern Ubuntu and PHP versions
  2. Manage SSH access with forwarded local keys
  3. Choose from 3 SSL/TLS implementations that all score A+ on Qualys tests
  4. Optimize images with dynamic offsite caching
  5. Secure and optimize with Cloudflare
  6. Tune unmanaged service with Memcached, microcaching, and more
How We Do What We Do

Serviceable WordPress

Focus on functionality first.

Data as natural artifacts of other work.

Design implemented with some excessive mixing across concerns.

Associated with development themes. Can also be achieved with some advanced page builder implementations in combination with appropriate information architecture plugins.

Design
Data
Functionality
Data
Design

Architecture Capabilities

Serviceable security.

Common performance objectives, including decent compliance with Google Core Web Vitals possible.

Common growth options available. New features and redesign projects possible with minimal rebuilds, as long as requirements are not extensive.

How We Do What We Do

Lesser WordPress

Mixed focus on design and functionality.

Design and functionality are tightly coupled.

Data as natural artifacts of other work.

Associated with page builders, lesser information architecture plugins, and opinionated themes.

Data
Functionality
Design
Data

Architecture Capabilities

Serviceable but limited security.

Some common performance objectives possible.

Limited growth options available. New features and redesign projects possible, but frequently require some rebuilding.

How We Do What We Do

Kludgy WordPress

Mixed focus on design and functionality, often as a single concern.

Very tightly coupled focus areas compromises creative access to data.

Data is afterthought (if considered at all).

Associated with process deficits and poor quality controls (and often tied to page builders, lesser information architecture plugins, opinionated themes, etc).

Data
Functionality
Design

Architecture Capabilities

Low security and recoverability.

Most common performance objectives only possible with risky dependence upon outside utilities, or not achievable at all.

Severely limited growth options. New features and redesign projects usually require extensive rebuilds.

How We Do What We Do

Serviceable

Lesser

Kludgy

Design
Data
Functionality
Data
Design
Data
Functionality
Design
Data
Data
Functionality
Design
How We Do What We Do

Enterprise WordPress

Focus on data first.

Functionality segmented into discrete and separated concerns.

Design decoupled as much as possible in a CMS.

Associated with custom database implementations, advanced development tooling, devotion to standards, and strict implementation and maintenance processes, while always (always!) adhering to "The WordPress Way". Safe to use with page builders and some information architecture plugins, but most opinionated themes and similar tools are excluded.

Design
Functionality
Feature 1
eg, Calendar
Feature 2
eg, Members
Feature 3
eg, Social
Functionality
Feature 4
eg, eComm
Feature 5
eg, Video
Feature 6
eg, Forms
Data
Design

Architecture Capabilities

High security and recoverability.

Common and advanced performance options available.

Extensive growth options available. Deep rebuilds rarely required, unless introducing significant paradigm shifts.

How We Do What We Do

Implementation and Care Processes

Formal processes filter out uncertainty, provide tracking, and help fight scope creep and definition drift

  1. Project implementation in 10 phases:
    Phase 0 Explore
    Phase 1 Engage
    Phase 2 Architect
    Phase 3 Provision
    Phase 4 Design
    Phase 5 Develop (C3L)
    Phase 6 Import
    Phase 7 Develop (App)
    Phase 8 Release
    Phase 9 Maintain
    • Similar to shorter processes, but clearer and more transparent thanks to greater granularity.
    • Allows overlapping and resequencing of phases for more agile execution.
  2. CR and OOPSR
  3. Tested Updates
  4. Environmental proofing and proving:
    1. Development
    2. Staging
    3. Production
    4. RemDev (optional)
    5. QA (optional)
    6. Additional environments available (including Super Stagers)
  5. Rebuild As Is
  6. Feature R&D
How We Do What We Do

Automation

Efficiency, precision, lower cost of ownership

  1. Project start-up automation pre-creates dozens of common objects
  2. Artificial Intelligence for default and starting content (text, sound, and images)
  3. Atomic deployments (complete project deployed at each event into dedicated release folders):
    1. Project code pulled from Git with Ansible
    2. Plugins pulled from WPackagist and PPCSS with Composer
    3. MU-Plugins pulled from Git with Ansible
    4. Integrated rollback to most recent full state or any saved release folder for earlier states
  4. At runtime: Dynamic Asset Switching, Perimeter Imaging, optional automated analytics reporting
  5. Cross-environment sync's
  6. Tested Upgrade process for proofing in Dev and Staging prior to release to Production and other remotes (QA, RemDev, Super Stagers)
How We Do What We Do

Quality

Continuous testing and Quality Assurance supplant heavy testing phases

  1. Plugin, theme, and service selection standards
  2. Viability Testing
  3. Manual and automated testing
  4. Integrated code quality tools
  5. Managed constraints applied to all third-party application dependencies
  6. Minimum 3 phase release in Tested Updates, because “untested upgrades are downgrades!”
  7. Skill development and community participation
How We Do What We Do

Paradigms

Industry standards and practices in all fabrication options

  1. Development
    1. Bedrock/Trellis, Ephemerals, DesktopServer
    2. Smallest possible builds
    3. Everything is updated and current
  2. Implementation
    1. Natural WordPress
    2. Headless
    3. Serverless
    4. Single Site vs MultiSite
  3. Tooling
    1. Ansible, Composer, Git
    2. Continuously vetted components
How We Do What We Do

Predictability

Knowing what's coming and when helps plan, reduce error, and suffer loss

  1. Planning
    1. Strict and transparent scope
    2. Thorough and transparent process
    3. Clear roles and responsibilities
    4. Progress reports
    5. Updating timelines
  2. Funding
    1. Fixed and transparent pricing
    2. Formal CR's and OOPSR's
    3. Never a surprise invoice!
How We Do What We Do

People

It's not just a platitude, it really is about people!

  1. Internal personnel
    1. Develop them
    2. Respect them and treat them well
    3. Use them wisely and lightly
  2. Clients, partners, and users
    1. Educate them and empower them
    2. Communicate with them honestly and simply
    3. Trust them and believe in them
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There's a presentation for that!

Ecosystem
Overview

Development Paradign Options

Implementation Process in Detail

Change
Management
Processes

The Anatomy
of a Feature

What's in
a Care Plan

How We Price
and Why

Security
and Access
Options

Performance
Tuning Options

Web Analytics Options

Technical
Standards
and Practices

R&D Project Implementation
and Care

?

Questions