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

[John O'Donovan-INTERNET]

Nuno,
I just copied the post out but didn't write it.

It's not as simple as just dealing with SA and IA roles. Systems Analysts,
Data Analysts, Business Analysts, Architects (of whatever flavour), etc...
all have involvement. In many ways the IA role clashes more with the first
three.

In my experience it is better to think of skills than roles - put the team
together that is necessary to solve the problem in hand.

Cheers,

jod 

PS: (just call me jod...:)


-----Original Message-----
From: Nuno Lopes [mailto:nbplopes at netcabo.pt]
Sent: 25 March 2003 12:45
To: sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] IA system components - add to the list! 


Thanks for the reply O'Donovan,

O'Donovan
>"The term "IA system" is meant to describe the IA-part of an
interactive
>system (website or intranet), and the components of an IA system
therefore >...."

I understand the intent but nevertheless it seams that such use of the
word "system" is kind of artificial because in I believe that in reality
it does not exist IMHO. In other words Information Architecture get so
intertwined with Software Architecture that is impossible to define when
one ends and the other ones starts. 

If I'm wrong and in reality such a system exist then it must have
interfaces. What are those interfaces?

I believe that is easier to consider that IA deals with only Information
from the user point of view, and SA deals with software and data from
the system point of view.

Has far as I understood what professionals in the field have been
stating in this list, deliverables should be set not according some
software development process like in SA, because software is not the
object of IA but information. A different approach is needed.

If we both agree on the following mission statement for IA ...

"Making people finding information they want/need"

... then a plan needs to be developed to cope with this goal. This may
include all sorts of tasks such as information organization, user
interface definition, subject based meta-data definition, information
model (data plus content), user interaction auditing, etc etc.

Nevertheless I see some conflicting "interests" between SA and IA in
certain areas of information architecture definition, that is why a
clear communication channel between the SA and IA is paramount to the
success of the venture.

This is where good project management comes into play. A good project
manager has to cope with both personalities and focus. The best would be
a team of at least three people, an Information Architect, a Project
Management, and a Software Architect. But in reality quite often this
separation of competencies to not exist, that is or SA supervises IA or
IA supervises SA within the scope of a project. But this is an all
different issue to debate probably in another thread.

Comments?

Best regards,

Nuno Lopes


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