DrupalCon Lille: Our Insights

We attended two very relevant sessions: one on the problems of fixed projects and another on how the changing world requires a change in the approach to contracts.

In addition, a lot of attention has been paid to how to improve the internal Drupal experience, including: enhancements to the admin panel, suggestions for changing user profiles, and other aspects that contribute to a more convenient and efficient use of Drupal.

• Next Drupal admin UI improvements
• Gin Admin Theme
• So I logged in, now what? The Dashboard initiative welcomes you

For effective collaboration, it is suggested to involve the client 50% of the time, helping them understand the technical aspects and the value of regular discussions, which become a key point in aligning expectations.

• Project management in the age of agile: where did everything go wrong?
• For good or for worse: making happy client relationships

And of course about leadership. It was unusual that a person from another field shared their experience and gave examples from the same area. The speaker was a helicopter pilot, and her presentation was really valuable for us, managers, and developers.

• Fly Higher - How to lead fearlessly

What she recommended:

1. Share your experience, including failures, with everyone.
2. Take responsibility for your own or others' mistakes or actions. We are all human and make mistakes, but those who accept them, draw conclusions, and take steps to avoid repeating them are winners.
3. Embrace new challenges without fear and see stressful situations as opportunities for growth.
4. Accept criticism and be open to change.

Additionally, I would like to highlight a couple of reports on sustainability. During a meeting with our client Nestlé, they emphasized their interest in and contemplation of environmental responsibility. They expressed a desire to promote some basic sustainable habits in the digital sphere, such as turning off lights as part of their everyday routine.

• Our joint sustainability journey: reducing emissions and technical learnings
• Sustainability and Drupal - How can our community reduce our CO2 Footprint

I'd note the presentations:

• Design System in Drupal : Build your website without coding! (sponsored by Smile)
• Design in Figma and deploy a pixel perfect Drupal website in days, not weeks!

The essence of the project: a boxed solution for quickly deploying a website with a Drupal theme, including a design system in Figma, and Storybook for visualization (not related to Drupal templates).

The idea is great, but Storybook and Drupal have different templates. It would be more useful to use the same. And a level of customization is small. I.e. three sites will differ in colors and fonts. There are not many options for elements, mostly "slots" are left for customization: small pieces of custom code that can be remade for yourself.

In general, we also really want to get such a quick site launch (in 4 days), but we need to optimize the templates and increase the degree of customization or add component options.

• Fly Higher - How to lead fearlessly

Very impressive and inspiring, helps to look at the bright side of things. "Fear is contagious and so is bravery." I really liked it.