Tag: documentation

The Book, The Movie, and the Business Document

The Book, The Movie, and the Business Document

by | Oct 5, 2015 | | 5 |

Communication using only words – whether verbal or written – leaves much to the imagination. Which is part of the appeal when it comes to reading for pleasure. Unlike a great book, most of us don’t read business documents such as a requirements specification for enjoyment. And unlike the book, there can be significant repercussions when one reader’s interpretation of the content varies widely from another’s. So, how can we improve the precision and clarity of documentation without getting too long?

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There are No Reliable Words

There are No Reliable Words

by | May 30, 2011 | | 3 |

To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”
— George Orwell

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Documentation is No Substitute for Interaction

Documentation is No Substitute for Interaction

by | May 13, 2008 | | 2 |

I’ve long been of the opinion that involving as many stakeholders in the project as early as possible is a key to successful business analysis, and, more importantly, to successful projects, and have said as much in a few of my posts on this site.

Jim Highsmith, in the book Agile project management : creating innovative products, thinks that the reason projects tend to have so much documentation and so few results is that:

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Functional Specs: Don't write them??

by | Feb 13, 2007 | | 0 |

“Functional specifications documents lead to an illusion of agreement. A bunch of people agreeing on paragraphs of text is not real agreement. Everyone is reading the same thing, but they’re often thinking something different.”

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