> In my experience, any design method can be applied well or poorly, > leading to good as well as bad results. No amount of standardization > and guideline writing seems to be capable of changing that. ...
Agreed. Can't force everyone to the same level of competence. > I tend to think of a method as a vehicle for coordination and > communication.... Then it's really two issues: a) what is the method so we can all communicate, and b) do they have the experience to execute the method and communicate the results in a competent manner so we can work as a team? I think there should be a focus on: "How is method X used as a means to distribute stakeholder involvement and power?" --- I have strong feelings about having SOME process in place because that way you know what the "rules" are so you can break them. I'll use an example that relates very well to any process: McDonalds. For a while, I worked at the one across from Disneyland when I as a kid. Opening Manager for the busiest breakfast west of the Mississippi. Working at any Mcdonalds is a very special experience, because they have done extensive user testing on the best process to make food that is consistent in just about anywhere in the world (good is another matter, but I'll leave that up to you). Their 2007 revenue was in the neighborhood of $23 billion, so it must be working. They hand you manuals that are hundreds in pages in length, everything from calibrating the making of carbonated drinks to how long a hamburger was supposed to cook, down to the second. Everything from staffing levels to where those people should be staffed. Dumbed down so any snotty teenager could follow. ;) Yet, working at that location, the restaurant was so busy we had to break the "rules". To accommodate special stresses of serving food to customers at an average of 7 patrons a minute (think about that), we modified the processes to fit the environment, some of the employees developing skills that you would never see in slower locations. Yes, we had a process to start from. But we changed it to meet the needs of environment, just as most industries do. Many industries in our global economy put processes in place to break them when need be: Toyota with Lean Manufacturing (http://www.strategosinc.com/just_in_time.htm), Nielsen with it's statistical marketing research methods all the way back to 1923, A/B testing in marketing copy. Each method and/or process is only as effective as the team that implements them. True. But the tools of our processes are not necessarily original (personas are very similar to demographic profiling I saw for political direct mail years before About Face came out). Nor should they be. We should draw upon other fields to improve our own. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
