After the launch: the difficult teenage years

When launching a new product to replace an old one, it’s easy to rally behind the mission and make good technical decisions. But once it’s launched, the vision is not so clear, corners cut to get the site live come back to bite, and things can very easily lose focus.

Based on my experience with the launch of two major sites (FT.com and GOV.UK) this talk is about how to bring things back on track.

• how to refresh the vision
• what to focus on in the tech strategy
• handling gnarly code that has grown unchecked
• making it easy to support
• protecting a DevOps culture when the business is unhappy
• tending a system that will live on, rather than be replaced again a few years down the line

Required audience experience:

None

Objectives of the talk:

Useful for anyone who is about to launch a product so they can avoid making the same mistakes, and anyone who is already in the difficult teenage years and needs a lifeline. You will learn how to make sure the vision is clear, the product is technically sound and it is well-supported operationally.

You can see Anna’s slides below: