One Artifact, One Vision

We have found that in a conversation with five people, each leaves with different threads resonating. Working as a team on a central artifact – a diagram, a list, a use case, whatever – is an extremely effective way of brokering clarity across a project team.

In the decentralized model, everybody takes personal notes with personal interpretations of the discussion. In some cases, perhaps a project manager or analyst scribes the entire meeting as “meeting notes”.   Both are better suited for defense than success.  Since there is not a shared “in scope” artifact, everybody will be marching toward personal notes which will be pulled out for defense when something goes wrong, but do not contribute to a success. Scribed meeting notes likewise get filed for defensive use in the end game.

Instead try using a visible central artifact to enable a shared vision:

1. Ask people to bring nothing but their thinking caps to your requirements or design meetings.
2. Use a whiteboard, blackboard,  easel pad, or even post it notes on a wall to capture a shared artifact.
3. Put that digital camera phone to use and email out the results – Poof! Instant artifact!
4. Post-meeting formalize the notes into an appropriate format and distribute for review.

Dan Hughes  is a principal consultant and partner at Systems Flow, Inc., where he leads the technology services practice. He has 20 years of software engineering experience spanning a broad range of technologies and techniques. Startup to enterprise, he has launched, managed, and executed all aspects of both product and enterprise life cycle, delivering complex, enterprise-scale architectures for clients in the public and private sector, in industries ranging from banking and insurance to international development. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. For more details, please visit Dan's LinkedIn profile Read more blogs by Dan Hughes

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