Amy Heidbreder

My days of being busy have yet to come to an end. The last few weeks have been day after day of outrageously long to-do lists, ranging from purchasing air filters, to shipping my saddle to Florida for repairs, to invoicing a client, to scheduling a dentist appointment for old fillings that need to be redone, bleh… My to-do list for work isn’t much better. In addition to every corner feeling booby trapped by something else I need to do, every little thing I accomplish to move further along in my journey only causes the incline to grow steeper. The last couple weeks I’ve felt somewhat discouraged as my personal journey has grown more treacherous and my to-dos continue to pummel my energy to dust. This is a testing season, for sure, that at times has me feeling further from my goals. Oh the irony, as I write those words on the heels of probably some of the greatest accomplishments in my lifetime. I think the COVID-19 pandemic has quite a bit to do with how I feel, and too, what society considers celebration worthy. It’s been hard to celebrate much of anything with the restrictions the pandemic has placed on all our lives. Great achievements worldwide are flying under the radar, reducing some of people’s greatest milestones to speed bumps.

I decided some time off might help me get my head screwed back on straight. I write this on a back patio overlooking a hillside out in a remote hill country region near San Antonio. This week off was a birthday present I gave to myself, and it has helped bring clarity to my busy brain. It’s freed me up enough to finally write about a huge project I was a part of, launched around mid–late September.

I am part of the team that last month launched JoelOsteen.com. The development of the recently launched redesign of JoelOsteen.com is the largest project I have ever been a part of. It was a massive endeavor that spanned the length of a few years, involving both a CRM and a CMS migration. My role in this project evolved over the course of it. Toward the end of the project, I played a pivotal role in approving content related functionality, making sure the Web Content Team was trained in the ability to maintain and enter content in the CMS, and most importantly led the user acceptance testing effort for the project.

Testing for a website launch of this size is rather involved. This platform sees thousands of visitors daily from all around the world. On the website, there’s various pieces of information and subscription settings users can alter on their account, there’s various ways to donate and purchase products. Multiple currencies are supported, there’s analytic tracking methods across a plethora of tools that must remain intact. All of this has to be considered and tested across multiple devices, browsers and results must be documented and tracked. I don’t like testing, but I try to do a good job at anything I apply myself at, and I am thorough when it comes to creating test scripts and making sure everything is covered. I get the hunch that I feel an immense amount of pressure testing sometimes, because third parties want to rush me so I find fewer issues. If there’s anything this project has taught me it’s to stand up for the integrity of a project. I move too slow for some people’s tastes, but I like to think it’s not that I move too slow, it’s that I get the job done right. Take a look when you have a chance at the link below. It was a huge undertaking by dozens of developers, designers, and web content leaders. I was only a small piece in this project, but this project’s launch is probably one of the greatest achievements of any team I’ve ever been a part of.

I’m going to remember this project forever. The outreach this platform has touches hundreds of thousands of lives daily, but there is no victory lap, no trophy, no prize money, no congratulatory lunch, just a longer to-do list. Out of this project however, I’ve gained invaluable work experience under an immense amount of pressure. I feel like a shaken-up soda can. Someone’s just got to pop the tab.