Cowboy Boots, Hot Chicken, and DrupalCon - Hook 42 is heading to Music City!

Hook42 neon drawing

Every year the Hook 42 team packs their collective bags and heads out to DrupalCon to share some knowledge, learn some new tricks, and spend some time catching up with the community. This year is no different. We’re excited to be heading Nashville! It’s a first for many of us on the team.

We are excited to be presenting a few sessions and participating in a few panels! We also look forward to seeing some of you in the Sprints throughout the week. Some of our team has signed up to mentor on Friday (psst... you can too!)

And now, let’s get down to business....

Sessions:

What mix of DevOps "things" is right for my needs?

Aimee Hannaford (Degnan) | Tuesday, April 10th, 3:45pm - 4:45pm | Room 207C

Navigating all of the DevOps tools and techniques available can be a daunting task, even for the most seasoned DevOps engineers. The DevOps landscape is always evolving - new tools surface, old tools get either out-performed or unsupported, tried and true tools gain new features and new footing. 

The goal of this session is to surface the best mix of DevOps "things" that are a best (or close to best) solution for real-world development team scenarios.

We will cover some basic topics, define some common use-cases, then apply DevOps approaches that would best fit the technical and business needs in the scenario.

Topics:

  • Identify common "needs" profiles (e.g., independents, Agencies, single dev teams, enterprise dev teams)
  • Identify common "scope" profiles (e.g., single project, many projects, complex product w/ integrations)
  • Identify common DevOps tool implementation profiles (e.g., self-hosted, SaaS models, hybrid solutions)
  • Define environmental considerations (e.g., dev staff skills, time / budget constraints, legal requirements)
  • Define common Software PM methods (e.g., Agile / Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, Giddy-up Cowboy, Eyes Wide Shut)

The following roles will find value in this talk:

  • Technical Project Managers 
  • Dev / IT Departmental Leads
  • Agency tech folks
  • Business / Technical Analysts
  • Developers

Takeaways

  • Have a method to articulate different DevOps approaches independent of tool names. Tool examples will be provided.
  • Have terms and terminology that can resonate beyond the DevOps engineers. (i.e., The People With The Money)
  • Have some sense of what "recipe" of tools and DevOps solution is close to your needs as a starting point

Core Accessibility: Building Inclusivity into the Drupal Project

Carie Fisher, Mike GiffordHelena McCabeCatharine McNally | Tuesday, April 10th, 3:45pm - 4:45pm | Room 101C

Drupal has come a long way in terms of accessibility over the years. In Drupal core specifically, we have been making good strides incorporating accessibility best practices into the UX and markup, but there is a lot we can still do!

This core conversation panel will discuss the current state of accessibility in the Drupal 8 project and the out-of-the-box Umami theme project, as well as ways to continue to build accessibility into future versions and themes in Drupal.

Overview:

  • What is accessibility and why does Drupal need it? (Quick overview)
  • What are some recent Drupal core accessibility improvements?
  • How do we think we are doing overall and what are we working on now in Drupal core?
  • What is the Umami project and how does it address accessibility?
  • What are some of the challenges we face in integrating accessibility into Drupal?
  • How can the community help increase accessibility in Drupal?

These questions will be jumping points into deeper conversations based on the audience, so bring your concerns, opinions, thoughts, and suggestions!

What Do You Want To Do When You Grow Up?

Aimee Hannaford (Degnan)Genevieve Parker | Thursday, April 12th, 10:45am - 11:45am | Room 101C

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" is a question we use as an ice breaker for interviews, one-on-ones, and learning / growth plan discussions. It always brings a chuckle and a genuine response from everyone - regardless of age, role, or job position.

But figuring out what you want to do can be hard. Reaching and obtaining your goals can be even harder. Not only for yourself, but for managers and leads, for your team members, too. Turning knowledge into action (the "Knowing-Doing Gap") is also a hurdle in reaching your goals. One may know how they want to grow, but may need some help in how to go about it.

This session will cover methods to create and execute individual improvement plans, hopefully without sounding too menacing.

Seriously - the words "improvement plan" sounds like someone is in trouble! And execute. Dang. This is sounding management-y. In that scary way. That is what many employees feel going into a formal growth plan and review process. "Formal." Another trigger word. Now that person may be scared, unsure, in trouble (?), vulnerable, exposed, overwhelmed. Yikes! 

This session will cover how to get past the fears and baggage to create mutual personal and business growth for your team members.

The topics covered:

  • Quantify the worth of personal growth to the business
  • Align personal growth to the company business goals
  • Techniques for team mentorship:
  • Coaching and supporting the goal setting process
  • Identifying actionable, obtainable goals
  • Strategic execution plan to achieve goals
  • Measuring / tracking progress
  • Common challenges with mentorship
  • Working through challenges in a positive, supportive method
  • Tools / templates used to capture and track goals (although this is not the focus)

Target audiences and their takeaways

  • All:
    • Cool. I can see how to level up and help achieve my personal goals!
    • Wow! I now have a way to articulate where am I now and where do I want to go.
    • I hope my manager / lead / coach / partner will mentor me in this way.
    • Oh, could I apply this to growth within the Drupal community?!
  • Employees / Independents:
    • Identify if your environment is providing the mentorship you need.
    • Use the tools to create some self-planning, should you not have the job support for growth. 
    • Have terms and concepts to articulate your needs to peers and management.
  • Management / owner / boss-peoples types:
    • Prerequisites to mentorship relationships.
    • Methods to achieve effective results.
    • You don't need a lot of overhead to create an effective growth plan.

Community Convos: Governance Retrospective

David HernandezAdam BergsteinGeorge DeMetNikki StevensAlanna BurkeShyamala RajaramFatima Sarah Khalid | Wednesday, April 11th, 2:15pm - 3:15pm | Room 101E

A community conversation is a space for community initiatives to discuss what they're working on with the community. 

As part of ongoing efforts to improve Drupal's community governance, the Drupal Community Working Group (CWG) was tasked by the Drupal Association and Dries Buytaert with defining next steps in the process. The CWG solicited volunteers from the Drupal community interested in governance, creating a group of community members to strategize how to involve as many people as possible. This new group then decided to hold public meetings to get feedback on next steps from the community.

The group facilitated a series of public, online meetings in an effort to solicit feedback from a broad range of community members. In this session, members of that group will report on the results of those meetings, as well as the community discussions and governance survey that led to them.

This conversation is a space to provide a retrospective of the entire process and facilitate a discussion on how to get more people involved in community governance.

Sprints:

Community and code sprints help the Drupal project move forward. Many of the team will be participating in the general sprints all week. We are also excited to be helping with the Mentored Code sprints on Friday!

Women in Drupal:

Each year we are happy to sponsor and attend the Women in Drupal event! As a women-owned company, we love to support other women in the community. We’ve always been impressed by the number of allies to women in tech who also come out to the event and show their support.

We hope to see you Tuesday, April 10th at the Tin Roof, 316 Broadway Avenue, Nashville from 6:00pm-8:00pm.

See you in Music City!

We have a booth on Tuesday this year! Stop by booth 106 to say hi and/or pick up some Hook 42 Nashville Swag!

We look forward to seeing you all at DrupalCon - whether at a session, in the hallways, or over a drink at one of the many social events!