MakingConnections

One of the ways I grow is if and when I am able to make connections among pieces of information.

For example, one piece of information is that "a concept will usually work in some but not all situations."

Another piece of information is that "process X worked on project Y."

What is the connection? I want to answer some questions and learn. What was it about project Y that allowed process X to work? What was it about process X that allowed it to work on project Y? On what projects would process X not work? What processes would not work on project Y? What processes would work on project Y?

A specific example. At the Agile Development conference, Jim Highsmith handed out a paper he wrote regarding Compliance and Delivery. There are tasks people do on a project to deliver the product. There are tasks people do on a project to comply with law, regulations, policies, etc. Highsmith advocated having lesser-paid people work on the compliance issues to free up the top technical people to concentrate on delivery issues.

Another piece of information comes from Edward Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of Power Point" which I saw from the thread WhyWeDoNotUsePowerPoint. Tufte recommends giving people two pages of text and figures instead of showing 25-20 power point slides.

I think I can make a connection here. I am about to start a new project (a government contract). The contractor must comply with terms of the contract by supplying the government information each month. They must also deliver a product. I think I can save us all money and time by giving the contractor a copy of both pieces of information and asking them to give me five or six pieces of paper containing real information instead of 100 power point slides each month. Also, the admin assistant can create these pages from scribbles and emails from the development engineers. This would give us the compliance information without causing the engineers to spend two days a month making power point slides.

DwaynePhillips 14 July 2003

Updated: Monday, July 14, 2003