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Outstanding advice Andrew, here's a bit more from the FTE front:
Get involved at the design stages. I'm now considered one of two
UI/usability experts in my company because I demonstrated competence in
design, a thorough understanding of development processes and timeframes,
and a willingness to work as a liaison between analysts, product management,
and developers. We shouldn't have to wait until the project is 75% complete
to do our work.
Offer to help the BAs and developers with functional and technical
specifications. Get on the project email lists as well and get invited to
spec reviews and code reviews.
There will always be changes, and as frustrating as it is, you probably
can't avoid it. A few things slipped through on our last release without me
knowing about it, but it doesn't happen often.
You can do a great amount of organizational and design work during the early
development stages, then follow Andrew's great advice about writing to
reality and scoping yourself. I'm extremely lucky, I was on the project
team from day 1, but I report to the same manager as the build engineers and
installation staff. And since I consider what I do to be as much product
support/user support as the implementation and help desk folks, it works out
best for the clients and the company.
"Tell me and I'll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me,
and I'll understand." - Native American Proverb
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Plato [mailto:intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 5:31 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Managing Engineers
This was a good question from a person in private mail. I am stripping out
the
person's name to respect her privacy.
We were discussing how to handle the never-ending amount of changes that
developers make to a product.
> So how do you manage this client? I spend a lot of time QAing my Help
where
> I "discover" a lot of UI changes that no one told me about. I am worried
> that I may not of "discovered" all of the changes. These guys never
> eventually tell me. I had a confrontation with one of the developers on
> Friday and he said that he thought I understood the application and that
he
> didn't need to inform me of changes. Sheesh!
Engineers are notorious for making changes and not telling people. A few
strategies Anitian Consulting uses:
[snip]
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