Re: [AM] A small success and a large irony

You shouldn't get hung up on not using tools!  We often use Visio or a
simple sequence-chart tool, with a projector or NetMeeting, for
collaborative modeling.

Hand-drawn diagrams create inertia - once you've got a complex diagram,
the notion of redrawing it to insert a change becomes unappealing.

More complicated tools also have their charms - if you've got bunch of
diagrams showing different views of the same components and their
interactions, the ability to change a name in one place and have the
change propagate through the other diagrams is very attractive, as is
the ability to use an interface in an interaction diagram and have the
tool notice that it isn't a defined method of the component and let you
add it automatically.  Good tools can increase your low-level agility.

You don't have to over-model just because you're using capable tools.

scott


| From: <[email protected]>
| Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:09:56 -0500
| 
| Responding to Steven:
| 
| Interestingly it was a thought i had on the plane afterwards that taking photos or using a printing white board might work.  Of course no one was thinking in that direction at the heat of the moment.  That does bring up a challenge - in this case only - and that is the different uses for the documented material.  Certainly my use was dramatically different than the lady's use.  Since 3 of the 4 of us were going to ULM with the results (for different reasons, and different ULM) what was drawn on the white board would not be appropriate to show w/o some modification and enhancement, which I'm sure all of us did for our respective recipients.  
| To simply record the contents for posterity or off-line usage, a digital camera makes sense, but when the contents are going to be included in other materials, altered for a specific audience, or whatever, perhaps that approach is less applicable.  Especially in this case where 2 of the 4 were not quite computer literate and preferred to look at paper than the same image on a screen.  I would have liked the digital image on my laptop on the plane, but then I'm not sure of quality and detail and if it were dependent on my taking the good picture - well, let's say I don't even have an analog camera anymore.
| 
| 
| Responding to Scott P:
| 
| So, what you're saying is that the group didn't agree there was no
| further need for the models, diagrams, etc., but rather that there was
| no need for a common, formal maintained, version of the model, diagrams,
| etc.
| 
| No thought or discussion was conducted on the matter.  It just happened. I noted as I finished making my notes that the others were doing the same thing.  
| 
| Personally, I would rather have had one person write it all down and
| circulate it to the others, whether it was to be maintained or not, so
| everybody could point to the same thing (avoiding the potential for
| drift based on individual transcriptions)...
| 
| I agree.  Probably would have been a better approach.  But the irony is that I thought I'd be the only one copying down the stuff. 
| 
| 
| Another way to look at this is that information often [virtually
| always?] needs to be conveyed to people who aren't in the room when the
| information is created and agreed upon.  Remember that you're making
| your utility decision on behalf of the whole project, not just the
| people in the room.
| 
| scott
| 
| Here's an interesting thought that might add to the guidelines of Agility.  I do not have the notes I scribbled down. Once I completed the report and the email that started this thread, I tossed the documentation.  suppose each of the others did as well?  They extracted the info they needed to produce the reports or whatever, and tossed the copies of the diagrams away.  No documented form of the models are left.  This adheres to the dictates of agility about models being temporary.  Thus, perhaps that might lead us to say not only Model with a purpose, but document only with a purpose.
| thoughts?
| -steve


-- 
scott preece
motorola urbana design center (il67), 1800 s. oak st., champaign, il  61820  
e-mail:	[email protected]	fax:	217-384-8550
phone:	217-384-8589	cell: 217-433-6114	pager: [email protected]

For more information about AM, visit the Agile Modeling Home Page at www.agilemodeling.com
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