We started our migration push today.  The strategy is go for speed.  Keep scope small, use a big team, go for it.

Today, I had four interns, four web editors (including Osvaldo, who runs the Portugal site), a graphic designer and my boss (head of digital communications) on the job.  Plus, we had a couple of welcome “volunteers” – a project manager (techie) from the IT department and the head of the photo/video library.

Start was bumpy, more technical problems than anything.  Getting user rights straightened out with the global IT support team.  That sort of thing.  Plus, everyone is still learning the new system.  We had a week training for the web editors and designer, but the rest only had a couple of hours.  We’re training them up on specific tasks as we go along.

post it notes - green, yellowProcess worked well.  I’ve turned into a post-it note addict.  We’ve got green notes for big categories of work, with yellow tasks under them.  That’s on one wall.  We’ve put our names on notes on another wall.  Everyone takes a next task, and puts it under their name.  I can see what everyone’s up to, give them additional information they need, make sure people are working to their strengths and make sure people who are working in the same area are helping each other out.

All told, today was good.  Spirits high.  It’s to early to tell if we’ll hit our launch target (May 3rd).  Stay tuned.