Re: Measurable objectives?

Subject: Re: Measurable objectives?
From: John Garison <john -at- garisons -dot- com>
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:37:35 -0500

In an ideal world, yes. In actuality, not so much.

Granted, I'm speaking from a startup mentality. John's subsequent post went into details about larger efforts and the necessity for keeping all related groups and projects apprised of progress and so forth, all of which I agree with. Another illustration of why smaller companies are more responsive (and usually more fun).

But back to the small world scenario. The same thing never happens twice, so developing a process that depends on specific inputs and actions and so forth is almost useless. At one end of the scale you can get larger truths written down, but they sound like this:

* Marketing commits to a deliverable to a customer in exchange the
the money that will pay our salaries at the end of the quarter.
* Development determines the minimum amount that they have to do to
meet the deliverable in time for the deadline.
* Documentation figures out what they have create, revise, and
remove by the deadline,.
* QA figures out how late they have to work the week before the
deadline to get the code tested and maybe glance at the doc.


Now, as to what constitutes the "Documentation figures out what they have create, revise, and remove by the deadline" portion - that's what they pay me the big bucks for. That, and sitting in development meetings to get the scoop on what they're planning on doing, telling them what is out of the question to document by the deadline, hounding the developers for information, getting my hands on each days build to see what's new and changed, and developing docs that reflect the reality of it all.

I love it.


My 2¢,

John Garison

(Who can tell he'd enjoy working with Elizabeth)


John Posada wrote:

... what's important is that you know what you are doing,
what you will be doing next, at what percentage of the project each
element should happen, and that you follow the same process each time.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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Re: Measurable objectives?: From: John Posada

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