How you take notes in SME interviews

[paul priola]

New to the list. Hi all. Since college I have realized that taking notes is the worst way to learn. As several of you have pointed out, many engineers are not linear thinkers and you end up drawing circles and arrows...
  ultimately can never figure out my own notes! I use interviews as a LAST resort. Instead, I just list my questions in an email and have the engineers write responses. There are several benefits to this approach.
  1. There is never a need to "translate your notes"
  2. Always have an electronic copy to refer back to.
  3. Engineer can respond at leasure (and hopefully at length).
  paul

James Barrow <vrfour at verizon.net> wrote:
  >On Behalf Of Carrie Baker:

>Maybe a silly question, but I was wondering

Not silly at all. 

>When you interview programers (or any other SMEs) about features you
>have to document, do you make notes in a notebook and write them up,
>or do you write directly into your computer.

Personally I think it's contingent on your penmanship, typing speed, and
short-term memory. I once worked for a company where I attended weekly JAD
sessions. These sessions lasted all day and it seemed to make more sense to
enter my meeting notes directly onto my laptop, rather than write them down
for eight hours, then type them out for another eight. This works for me if
I'm capturing information on a high-level basis (scope-of-work, use cases,
etc.).

>Up till now I have been scribbling on bits of paper (or decorating
>print outs of screen shots), but I am considering going to meetings
>with my laptop.

Mostly I sit down for impromptu meetings with developers/testers to get the
latest developments. For these meetings I print screenshots of the
features/functionality we will discuss and make my notes on these. This
seems to serve the purpose if all the programmer did was add a Show and Hide
button to the screen.

>Do you think that would be a better idea?

Have the programmers write down what they did in 500 words or less, and let
us proofread.

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