Documentum In the Trenches: WP

I have been working with EMC Documentum's Webpublisher long enough to know a few things about the got yas during the phases of a website project.

1. There is no guide that provides a soup to nuts view into how a website publishing project is designed, developed, and implemented.
2. Webpublisher will have issues, it's just a reality.
3. As with most websites the business requirements will focus mainly on the look and feel of the site, not the mechanics of how you get the content on the site.
4. If you like to follow project schedules closely then you better pad in time because you're going to need it.

With these four observations in mind, I'd like to take you on a ride down Webpublisher memory lane with a project that I recently completed (no projects are ever really done, who's kidding who?). The structure of my remembrances will following the usual project lifecycles:

1. Discovery: do they really know what they want?
2. Business requirements: who are we writing the requirements for?
3. WP installation and configuration: This can be painful.
4. Prototyping and proof of concept: This is fun!
5. Specs: We'll write these if we have to.
6. WP Development: Try not to Thrash.
7. Deployment: That wasn't in the spec!
8. Training: That was easy; until they actually start to use it.
9. Stabilization: Is anyone using this?
10. Support: Who's doing it?