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By justbeachy on
Hi ~
In a quick nutshell, I have a network of six Drupal 7 sites. They were built over a period of 3 years by several different firms. I'd hire one, then after several months, they'd tell me the project was too big and I'd have to hire a larger firm. This happened 4 times. I've put a TON of money into development for this reason and because the last firm was very reputable (and expensive), I assumed the sites were built fairly well. For various reasons I decided to hire a new firm to make the sites mobile responsive. At first they said "no problem" and it would cost less than $10K. A month later they told me they thought the sites would have to be completely rebuilt. At this point I need to hire an experienced Drupal dev to do some maintenance work on the sites (like install security updates, some redesign, etc), but more importantly, I need someone will experience building dev apps in Drupal to take a look "under the hood" and give me a no b.s. assessment of the dev of the sites. I literally don't know where to turn - i've been to linkedin and i've searched on google, but I really need someone who knows what they are doing!! If anyone has ANY SUGGESTIONS AT ALL, I'd greatly appreciate it! I can hire another firm, but at this point I'm reluctant to trust that I'll get an honest evalution. Note: I personally think the sites, while not perfect, are probably built fairly well, i.e. i find it hard to believe that the sites would need to be rebuilt from scratch. (the firm that stated this, however, did not specialize in drupal). Please help!!!
Comments
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I hate to cast aspersions without any concrete evidence, but I find it difficult to believe a drupal 7 site would have to be completely rebuilt in order to make it responsive. It would like requiring RE-THEMING, but that's hardly the same thing as rebuilding.
I agree - thus my quandry!
When they first gave me their estimate, they'd looked at the dev and told me that it looked like a fair amount of the site had been built using pixels instead of percentages, but that this could be fixed. Then 4 weeks and $10K later they said "sorry, this is too difficult of us, but there's a top notch firm in DC that will do it. You'll have to decide whether you want to fix the sites or completely rebuild them, but the cost will probably be the same - $50K minimum."
Now I've already spent more than $200K building these sites - that's a big number. The last firm that did most of the dev work was a big and highly qualified firm. They knew that we'd have to make the sites mobile responsive at the very least (who DOESN'T in this decade), so I find it hard to believe the situation can't be remedied without a rebuild. But this is so frustrating it has me questioning whether i should have gone with Drupal to begin with. Given that these are video-sharing sites designed to handle large volumes of traffic, Drupal seemed like a solid choice. But now I'm stuck without a dev (I don't trust my last firm or dev as they are the ones who screwed it up) and everyone at first blush seems capable - for 2 months or so. I need to find someone with experience building dev apps but i have no idea where to look - the firms I've hired in the past where all recommended by the previous firms. And consultants - they've referred me to firms they work with that give them a cut. :/
Note: The sites were "cloned" so they would pretty much mirror each other, so most of the expense was in building one site - the cloning expense is minimal. If one site can be "fixed", the others should be fairly simple.
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There seems to be a few issues here. First, rebuilding != retheming. From what you've said in this followup comment, it doesn't seem as if anyone was suggesting rebuilding but rather retheming. If you have a pixel based site you want to make responsive, building a new theme is entirely appropriate.
Second, changing a pixel based site to a responsive site can definitely be quite an undertaking. Depending on how demanding you are about maintaining pixel perfect appearance, it could be a nightmare and it wouldn't surprise me at all for a firm to run for the hills, lol. Responsive sites just don't lend themselves to pixel perfectness-- it's actually the diametrically opposite thing.
The issues of paying 10K for 4 weeks work and not receiving what you wanted is a contractual thing. I would never recommend paying 10k up front -- but rather structure the contract so as to pay over time with payment tied to concrete deliverables and milestones.
same with the 'highly qualified firm... [who] knew that we'd have to make the sites mobile responsive' -- was that in the contract? If it was, you might have legal recourse if the result doesn't match the contract. If it wasn't, it doesn't much matter what you wanted or what you think they knew about what you wanted. All that matters is the contract.
None of these things are drupal specific however. And you don't describe what the sites do, so it's impossible to say whether or not drupal would be a good fit. But even if not, the issues you describe could occur with any firm/consultant using any CMS or even static HTML.
Unfortunately, it sounds like the real issue is a mismatch between expectations vs deliverables. I would consider refining your contracting process before moving your sites to other technology. Make sure to use a formal detailed RFP and detailed contract with payments tied to a schedule of deliverables. If you're not using agile methodology, be sure to have detailed and explicit Business and Functional requirements. There's ton of great info out there on this stuff.
Thanks so much for your input!
Thanks SO MUCH for taking the time to offer so much advice. Since posting this, I've received a ton of emails from various developers / firms all over the world offering additional input and their services. That's exactly what I was hoping for, as otherwise I was just going to randomly pick 3 top firms and contact them (again).
(1) You're correct about "re-theming" - I simply used the term "re-build" because that's the term the dev used when explaining the "problem" to me. He also suggested that it might be cheaper to "start from scratch." That's a very scary thing to hear after so much time and money has been put into the sites.
(2) As for how much time and effort this would entail, I would agree except for the fact that they did a review of the sites BEFORE drawing up the contract (as they should have). So I naturally assumed that they'd done a fairly accurate evaluation. The owner was in that meeting and said "I promise it's not going to cost more than $6k". And I didn't pay it all upfront, but over a period of several weeks as I the work was "progressing". I met with the team in their offices several times and had calls every week with them. My first indication that something was amiss was when I was shown a 3 second video of what the home page would look like responsive. It wasn't my home page, just basically a template and I was immediately worried. Then the guy heading my project mentioned in a meeting that the person who'd done that video couldn't be in the meeting because he was in class - he was an intern. :/ Yes, I could definitely get my money back as the terms of that contract weren't met, but that's a different story as that firm is located in the fairly small town where I live, which complicates things. And I know they're an excellent firm. But given the situation, I didn't feel comfortable simply hiring the firm they suggested, especially after he said "just be prepared, they're one of the most expensive firms in the country." :/ I've already been down that road with firm #4.
(3) I can definitely see how you would think my expectations vs. contract deliverables must be off - in fact, I realize that in explaining this I must seem terribly incompetent and gullible. I am neither of those things, which makes my story even worse. In addition to learning Drupal, I read case law in my spare time. I ALWAYS walk the entire team not only through literally EVERY SINGLE ELEMENT of the sites, but what they need to be able to do as development progresses (i.e. future features) so that the team could never say "well if you'd told us that two months ago, we'd have done this or that differently." I make sure that everything is spelled out explicitly in a contract, especially payment and schedule of deliverables. To say that I'm beyond thorough is an understatement. No matter how solid the contract is, however, there's simply no way to guarantee that a company will actually adhere to it. For example, from firm #1 I learned not to have a completion date in a contract that was an estimate such as "4-6 months" because 6 months later instead of a finished website, I had pretty much nothing. I learned that they'd actually subcontracted the work out to another firm (in violation of our contract) and that firm didn't do the work. Fired them and hired firm #2 - I'll skip the travesty of that story and the consultant who referred me to them. By firm #3 I had learned a LOT and hired a top law firm (for obvious reasons). My lawyers approved that contract - it was as perfect and specific as a contract can get. This time, of course, I insisted on a date specific deadline. Not only did this firm not meet the deadline, they violated the contract in just about every way possible. And yes, I definitely could have sued them. I settled for getting most of my money back and moving on, but they wasted 7 MONTHS of my time. In that case, the owner of the company was as stunned as I was by what the lead dev had done - or should I say not done. My law firm wanted to sue them, but they'd already cost me so much in time and money that I just wanted to move one - I didn't want the headache of a protracted lawsuit.
I wouldn't believe my story myself had I not had the misfortune of experiencing it. :/ This has been a long, difficult journey thus far and I just wanted some input as to who I could hire to help me complete it. I discovered that Googling "top drupal developers" was pretty much a crap shoot and at this point, I didn't know anyone who's advice I could trust. :/
WorldFallz already covered
WorldFallz already covered most of what needs to be said, but I just wanted to add:
Never use companies that don't specialize in Drupal, to work on Drupal. More often than not, they'll make a dog's mess out of the back end, until they come to the point where they cannot move any further.
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heck yeah-- i left out the MOST important thing, lol.
No matter how well known, reputable, or good a firm is-- if they are not drupal specialists the project will likely end in disaster for both parties.
You wouldn't hire a bicycle mechanic to fix your car would you?
Drupal Specialists
In researching firms, I discovered that they are either exclusively Drupal or they specialize in a variety of CMS INCLUDING Drupal. The firm I hired to make the sites mobile responsive was one of the latter - I chose this firm based more on their experience developing apps than their experience with Drupal. This obviously proved to be a mistake - they did have a Drupal "expert" on their team, but I've learned that this term is used very loosely. :/ And I couldn't agree more - I'll never hire another firm that doesn't specialize in Drupal.
Excellent Comments
I can only add that depending on your location I would try to find a local Drupal meetup and go along to the next one. You should be able to pick up some free advice and connect with the specialists in Drupal that you need.
What are the sites?
Can you post the URLs? As far as it being responsive all that takes is a new theme. It sounds like the firm you asked is a little in over their heads as far as drupal goes.