[Sigia-l] We could just use whiteboards instead.

[Faith Peterson]

2 more cents FWIW:

>The *entire* purpose of the design/development process is to create a
purely
d-i-g-i-t-a-l product.

The creation of persons (users) who can work more easily, more productively,
more efficiently, or with more power - isn't *that* the real purpose?

> I look down on design by committee,

There's a difference between "design by committee" and guided groupwork.

> Many of my past projects have been rescuing large-scale projects
>that have gone off the track, mostly due to lax management and design by
>committee.

Those things can happen. The most off-track proejct I've seen, however, was
one in which the consulting firm did individual interviews, then went off
and created a design on their own. Several months after their scheduled
delivery and several hundred thousand dollars later, they were sent packing.
My team were asked to pick up where they left off (turned out not to be
possible) so our first step was reviewing their work product to that point.
I was struck by the level of idiocy and profound lack of insight and
understanding evidenced by their work product. Maybe the key factor is the
genius and creativity of the analyst(s) rather than the means employed.


> I was involved in many projects where PC technology was introduced into
unwilling,
>uncooperative environments full of suspecting, in fact, revolting people.
...
>People who think their jobs will be replaced or their domain knowledge will
>be siphoned off by new technology, will resist and not cooperate.

One sees less and less of this, no? I encounter, in the main, people who are
"making do" with a number of patchworked applications, none of which is
truly suited to its required use, frequently poorly designed, almost always
poorly integrated - just bad. People either blame themselves, figuring
they're just not smart or knowledgeable enough to use the applications their
employer has provided, or they resent struggling day-in and day-out to
achieve ever-increasing levels of performance with tools that not only
aren't adequate to the task but actually make their tasks harder to
accomplish. They'd happily make bricks if only they had straw. So in my
experience people are often genuinely interested in improving their lives at
work and have been extremely generous with their time, even when it's not
"their job".




Faith Peterson
Schaumburg, IL, USA
faithp at wideopenwest.com