It was over year a ago when I was that nervous the last time. I had the honour to talk about things that can go wrong when overtaking support, change management or hosting for a WordPress installation that you didn’t do yourself. We’ve been asked to do than quite a lot of times now. Also, I had the chance to participate in the panel with other swiss agencies. So when Noel and I were finally able to plug-in the VGA by force, I quickly began to tell the audience how much things can go wrong.

1. Introduction to...
The “Adopt a WordPress made by someone else” checklist
The
Adopt a WordPress
made by
someone else
checklist

2. Types of starting positions
The “Adopt a WordPress made by someone else” checklist
★ 1. Adopt a newly built WordPress.
★ 2. Adopt (and/or rebuild) a very old WordPress.
★ 3. Kind of “a mix of both”.
★ 4. ...or something completely different.

3. The project manager checklist
The “Adopt a WordPress made by someone else” checklist
★ Is there a documentation (PhpDoc, specs)?
★ Does the customer make changes on his own?
★ Has the customer been trained?
★ Did you test the software?
★ How did you test the software?

4. The technical checklist (part 1)
The “Adopt a WordPress made by someone else” checklist
★ How many traffic does the site have?
★ Where (and how) is it installed?
★ Is there a test system? Deployment system?
★ Are there paid plugins / license keys?
★ Are there “closed source” plugins?

5. The technical checklist (part 2)
The “Adopt a WordPress made by someone else” checklist
★ Again: Ask about the documentation.
★ Take a (good) look at the code.
★ How is the compatibility?
★ PHP / Frontend Frameworks, Gulp, Compass?
★ If possible: Install locally and test yourself.

6. Questions! & hopefully answers.
The “Adopt a WordPress made by someone else” checklist
Michael Sebel
CEO &
Backend Developer
Twitter: @msebel