[Sigia-l] IA system components - add to the list!

[Arno Reichenauer]

"Christina Wodtke" wrote:

> In my experience, stringent highly structured methodologies breakdown and
> get thrown out, while highly flexible toolkits of skills and techniques
are
> better suited to the wide variety of problems that come our way.
>
> FOR EXAMPLE when a client came to Carbon IQ loooong ago, we put together a
> strategy of research and design and testing. When they cut the budget in
> half, rather than throwing put the research and testing (as they
suggested),
> we moved to a faster cheaper technique and were able to learn key
> information that shaped the end product.

True, Christina, highly structured, fixed methodologies are of no use in
practice. The only thing that I'd like to question is if this toolkit of
skills and techniques is already the final non-plus-ultra. Because, in my
experience, especially with the usual moving targets you described, it is
often crucial to be able to fully leverage synergetic effects to get the
expected output within the limited frame of available resources.

And for that, some kind of very basic, high-level process framework could
prove valuable: E.g., it could help to
- plan the flow of steps necessary in a specific project and thereby enable
the IA to sophisticatedly re-use preliminary results of one step to
ease/shorten/ another step.
- sophisticatedly choose, from a toolbox of techniques, the combination of
techniques that fit the specific situation at hand

Can you agree on that?

Arno