[Sigia-l] Initial Stakeholders Meeting

[Arthur Fink]

At 09:19 AM 11/10/2004, Jared M. Spool wrote:

>I'm concerned that using a technique like this at an initial meeting could 
>set a direction that is hazardous to the project. Keith's excellent test 
>focuses purely on navigation. It assumes that the page under stress 
>*should* be on the site. It doesn't ask whether the content on the page is 
>useful, or whether it's complete, or if it's even important to the success 
>of the enterprise.
>
>If you start with Keith's test and not address those issues, I'd be afraid 
>that you'll divert the stakeholders to thinking that navigation, 
>independent of the value of the content, is the most important thing on 
>which to focus. I don't think that's what you want to do.

I'm strongly with Jared on this one!

The first meeting should address one set of questions:  What are the 
goals?  What's the business problem to be solved?  What's the business 
result to be achieved?

At first, the stakeholders may reject these questions as trivial.  "Of 
course, we need a more modern site", they'll declare.  Then they'll 
probably want to talk about the new technology it should incorporate, how a 
content management system ought to be part of the solution, or some other 
such techno-talk.

But our job is to pull the meeting back on track:  "How will we know that 
we've succeeded?", we can ask.  Or, "What should be measurably different, 
after this project is well done?".

My typical experience of this dialog is five difficult awkward minutes, and 
then an energetic and important sharing of concerns and goals that comes as 
a surprise to almost everybody presant.

    ARTHUR FINK Consulting   arthur at arthurfink.com
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