[Sigia-l] at what point does IA et al. become meaningless?

[Skot Nelson]

The list seems to be populated by people who are primarily working on  
large projects, with (presumably) sizable budgets.

I'm wondering if there's a point at the bottom end of budget where  
people simply abandon any pretense of dedicated IA? I'm not referring  
to it as a job, but rather as a role and critical path point.

In my view, the IA deliverables are ALWAYS a critical point in any  
project - if nothing else, they coalesce the mind around site content  
and structure, and the process of "putting things on paper" (virtual  
or otherwise) creates a non-shifting reference point from which to  
proceed with an actual build.

At my current job, projects range in size from $5,000 to $20,000 in  
most cases. The company has done much larger projects, but not for  
some time. None of the tasks I would traditionally associate with  
Information Architecture (or, for that matter, Project Management)  
happen in any coherent way.

Is this common practice? Is there a budget point at which projects  
become 100% "just get it done" without all these steps to interfere?  
Where IA happnes on the fly, rather than in an organized manner?

Advice and thoughts welcome.
--
Skot Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com