Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

Here’s another back-dated post, with a date chosen shortly after Joel’s post to which it refers.  I’ve done this to ensure that these comments are read in context.

My apologies to those for whom this practice offends – as noted before, I believe ICT is an enabler, not an ends in itself (or, to put it another way, I am not interested in form without substance).

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1)     Introduction to Joel’s Post

Back on November 1st, Joel Spolsky made a post for Inc magazine entitled “Does Slow Growth Equal Slow Death?”.

One of the guys in the office found this, and it stimulated a bit of discussion internally about where our bus is headed (on a restricted post).  This was good, as we had commenced our Autopsy 2 process. read more »

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One of our central focuses back in our Business Autopsy in July (which we’re now starting to think of as Autopsy 1 - as distinct from the current Autopsy 2), was the fact that our software development processes were not up-to-scratch. read more »

This commentary was initially included in a lengthy book review post about the book “Tale of Two Systems”.  Given I will be referring to these two documents on an ongoing basis, I have shifted the commentary to this separate page.

In the book, the 2nd key document is called the “Statement of Work” (SOW).

This, along with the “Concept Document” are the two key documents referenced in the book.   I agree there should only be two!

According to the book (p8) this “laid out the ‘how’, ‘who’ and ‘when’”.

The author notes that this was developed concurrently with the iterative development of the Concept (i.e. “What and Why) Document.

In my view, it is important that this was a separate document, as these types of details (whilst needed up-front) should not pad out a business case.

As a business owner, what I need is to know that the SOW exists and to have trust in the people who have developed the SOW – I do not necessarily need to read the details.

For our company, moving forward, we’ll place particular emphasis on conversations, and documentation, that answer together the:

HOW, WHO and WHEN

This commentary was initially included in a lengthy book review post about the book “Tale of Two Systems”.  Given I will be referring to these two documents on an ongoing basis, I have shifted the commentary to this separate page.

In the Tale of Two Systems, this is called “The Concept Document”.

This, along with the “Statement of Work” are the two key documents referenced in the book.   This model of only two key documents is certainly something worthwhile for us to follow…

Personally speaking (and knowing how language is loaded with semantics) I would prefer we even use the name “What and Why Document” to describe this one.

Paraphrasing the book, this is essentially the marketing document (i.e. the business case to which internal and external partners sign up).  It contains such things as:
1)  Financial projections
2)  Who we think the users are
3)  Their value proposition
4)  How much we think they will be willing to pay
5)  How much we think it will cost us to develop
6)  The risks and threats we see.

In other words:

WHAT and WHY