Month: February 2009
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Followership
Not everyone gets to be a leader, and most leaders are also followers in their own right. The project manager follows instructions from the project sponsor, the CEO from the board, the politicians from the polls, and so on. Followership is the yang to leadership’s yin, and according to many interesting sources following can be…
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A pretty good requirements analysis checklist
Recently I was asked for a high level requirements plan for a large IT conversion. I googled around a little for something standard. I found some good references (see links at the bottom of this post), but not exactly what I was looking for: a simple, method-agnostic layout of the high level steps and checkpoints…
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What’s wrong with calling them “users”
To me, calling someone a “user” contributes to the gulf between IT and other business people.
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Free form diagrams part 3: just right, with a few rules
Free form diagramming doesn’t only mean “no rules”, it also means “just right”. This post, last in a three part series on free form diagramming, gives some simple guidelines for getting the technique right. Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams…
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Free form diagrams part 2: real world applications
This is part two of a three part series on free form diagramming for IT projects. This entry reviews free form diagramming in practice. Part one talked about the tension between rigor and expression in diagramming for analysis and design, and how more precise diagrams can hinder rather than help communications with business people. Part…
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Free form diagrams part 1: rigor versus business appeal
One effective way of communicating complexity, especially in the overall architecture of a system, is the free form diagram. A free form diagram can directly address unique characteristics of a system in a way that business people can understand. Out on a walk some years ago I met an acquaintance who happened to be a…