Why We Can't 'Grow' a Website in Drupal

A key part of website creation that is often overlooked is its potential to help the website owners understand more about their own business goals. This comes about naturally as the site producers ask their client's questions about the site's purpose, thereby challenging the owner to think things through.

There's an interesting implication here: this deepening understanding and articulation of business intent is a process of growing awareness - so what if the website itself could be 'grown' as this consciousness develops?

Growing a website is about an agile a process as I can imagine. This kind of people-oriented approach is the complete opposite to the technology-oriented 'waterfall' processes of the past. As I've said before, it's not primarily a technological problem - it's a business problem. The essential aim is to start with a blank screen and end with a highly articulated, interactive website in which everything has a purpose.

Growing a site from the Outside, where the client's awareness lies, would be an ideal way to solve this business problem. Each step of the way would be linked to a business decision.

But there's a glitch for Drupal sitebuilders. Drupal presents many obstacles to anyone trying to take this route. In this segment I present a summary of what gets in way and why Drupal's sitebuilding process is essentially Inside-Out.