[Sigia-l] Programming IAs was: Little things an IA MUST know/do

[Listera]

"Todd R. Warfel" wrote:

> Don't you think it's a little too general to say they are both focusing
> on the same thing - the product? That's not very helpful the them -

It's not, (especially) if they are solely concerned with what their blinders
allow them to see.
 
> Employee: What's my role in this whole cycle?
> Employer: Well, you're suppose to focus on the product.
> Employee: What part?
> Employer: The product. Didn't you hear me the first time?

Let me feel it, I can't see. Does it have a tail? Big floppy things? What's
that sharp, long thing? Ohh, it's an elephant! No wonder.

One of the reasons why enlightened companies rotate their staff (like
sending their engineers on sales calls, manning their support lines with
marketing people, etc) is precisely for this reason: to get a sense of the
product they are selling, what it takes to produce it and market it, what
other members of the organizations go through to get it to the market, how
their users perceive the product, etc.

A designer, for example, who is only concerned about placing, say, a listbox
on a page but doesn't quite understand/care about the ramifications of that
in maintaining processes to support that server side is not a very good
designer. Neither is a programmer who doesn't quite grok the fact that, for
example, excessive authentication may make session maintenance (technically)
easier but also a nightmare for usability.

The point is for BOTH of them to focus on the product, yes the product, not
just on their (often historically but artificially demarcated) niches, but
on the totality of the product.

You can palpably see this when comparing a cheap PC clone vs. an Apple
product that does the same thing: various team members focusing on a product
-- 'traditional' across boundaries -- not just parts assembled.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba