Wed, Dec 20, 2006
Fighting project amnesia and communicating requirements
I’ve been working with people in Philadelphia from an office in Washington, D.
I’ve been working with people in Philadelphia from an office in Washington, D.C., and the distance means I do a lot of communicating in deliverables. And the potential impact of some of the work has meant we’re looking at things with a broader scope, both in functionality, as well as over time.
Time is the most frustrating part for me. Longer times between upfront discovery means the team forgets relevant insights and outcomes by the time they’re implementing something six months later.
To keep important strategic insights in mind during tactical development, I’m trying to start putting the business goals right on the deliverable. One, two, three: this is why we’re doing this.
But minds are slippery on the tactical side, too.
We’re working on a series of headers that, potentially, could appear just about anywhere. Part of this work was identifying that we needed content guidelines. Specifically, where you can and can’t place ads.
The deliverable for this project included the semantic architecture (what elements existed, their importance, and prominence), content guidelines (what belonged and didn’t belong in those elements and where they linked to), behavior guidelines (mostly link mouseovers, opens in same page), and some wireframes and design mockups.
As a knowledge management document, I think this was great. Everything is in one bundle. It’s not too wordy. Lots of pictures. And the text is concise and filled with concrete examples from the current site and day-to-day business activities.
But…
On it’s way to development, I was asked to remove the design and business context so it’d be easier for them to focus on what they needed. So, I did.
The next version will be different. Everything goes back in, but I’ll have clear sections, so developers can just flip to their relevant section. I’ll give that a try.
But, how are you guys handling this? Everything in one document? Multiple documents? What are you doing to fight project amnesia?
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