goals

Goals help unify people and raise the quality of decisions. People have diverse beliefs and experiences, and building a team requires considerable effort and compromise. Ensuring that most of a team's efforts work towards a goal requires a degree of focus.

A goal of forcing a horrible official out of office should ideally be supplemented with a goal of putting somebody better in place, for example. Otherwise the result of a lot of hard work is a new face and name in power but the same corruption and incompetence as before.

Sometimes goal selection is clumsy. Excessively narrow interpretations of goals can stifle team creativity and morale. Clear goals, however, are key to success.

One of the best books emphasizing goals is Principles of Software Engineering Management by Tom Gilb. The book is easy to read, especially towards the start. (Gilb is a little bit of a cowboy, but this makes his book easy to understand. He writes about basic issues, not abstract topics.)

issue list

These are key parts of large projects, especially in software. They make quality a key part of release.

decision matrix

The table contents will usually be quite speculative but it may promote thought and discussion.

The film version of Primary Colors includes a scene in which campaign staffers attempt to estimate the vote impact of different positions on issues. (The scene also showed how technology can require training and cause frustration.)

"Impact Estimation Table" is an example term used by Tom Gilb.

Decision Matrix - ASQ

Decision Matrix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

tags

Tags are quite valuable for scheduling and status. It is important to be able to list key activities and know whether or not they are complete. Tags allow navigation from requirement documents to status reports. Without tags it is difficult to map current activities back to plans.

Legislation is identified with bill numbers. Restaurants often number the items on their menus. Tags can be a powerful tool on software projects as there is a lot of creation and the project scope can surpass an intuitive understanding.

Tags on projects usually identify a specific problem, solution, or activity. The detail is greater than the search tags and keywords requested by something like YouTube.

Tags work best when there is a structure that people follow. FUNDRAISER1.ANNOUNCE.PAPER_MAILING follows {event}.{high-level action}.{low-level action}, for example. Stabilizing a tag structure and set of terms early is best, though this is not possible on a complex project. It is important that team members do not add synonym tags under pressure.

In extreme chaos, a tag system can break down and add to confusion. The people who own the tags should be practical and strong enough to defend the integrity of the tags.

The best known proponent of tags in software is Tom Gilb.

survey

It is important to know why people join and quit organizations, as well as why they donate money. Surveys can help to estimate key attributes of a large team, such as how they feel about quality and working conditions.

Survey results can be manipulated or used incompetently. People performing calculations may make mistakes and pass along absurd results. Still, surveys can be a basis for discussion. They can help make and justify decisions.

record

attribute specification

An attribute specification document may sometimes be discarded over time but it at least encourages people to consider key aspects of a project.

A software project may include a usability attribute. Political projects could potentially identify targets for levels of consensus.

In contrast to an attribute specification, there may be a functional specification for software which identifies elements to be delivered. (The idea of a "functional spec" is better known than "attribute spec.")

Is List

Is Not List

schedule

Often initial schedules are pure fantasy. People feel optimistic, or are pressured to hide difficulties. Some schedules are made based upon external deadlines, such as elections. If schedules are made without solid information and team discussion then the results will be low.

The creation of a schedule is an art. Task dependencies must be recognized to order work. Tasks require clarity and ownership. A realistic schedule is one in which there is a chance to complete work early.

Schedules require constant monitoring. People should not be afraid to report the truth about a slipping schedule. People should also not try to handle slipping schedules just by working harder, though this mistake is easy to make.

Focusing on meeting deadlines can help a team to maintain simplicity and push back on excessive changes. The degree to meet a deadline is a key measure of project health. (There will almost be some slippage as a project evolves, however.)

Because time is money it is easy for managers to try to minimize project time. This can increase tension and decrease respect for management.

These topics are often discussed in detail in business but not activism.