I’ve been at it for some time now, and most of the time, the discovery process, documentation, and workflows are a bit too overwhelming for businesses and teams when we come onto a project. They’re very excited about the possibilities that are there. We want to present things in an organized way. We know that we are a good option, that’s why the client decided to meet with us. I think we go a bit overboard and move on to creating a lot of documentation. The workflows, diagrams, and processes become overwhelming. As much as people love to learn visually and with charts, sometimes it isn’t the right option.
So, what do I do in this situation? With the more traditional, normal, off-the-shelf tools, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have very extensive diagrams documenting everything. A plan that shows where the problems are and the things that can possibly go wrong is enough, especially if you’re looking at a tool that has been in use for years and years. But when it comes to custom tools, it’s very important to carry out the documentation on a smaller scale. Now, if we’re working with a team that prefers lots of documentation, that’s very good. I think, over time, when working with people, you know what they want to see.
With custom tools, we have to organize or create the flow that we want to follow while building. We want to have all of our goals laid out and have all of the problems identified. We want to know who is going to use the tool, for how long, and how frequently. How often will these people be using the tool? What are they using it for? What do they want to do? What are the priorities? What are the requirements? Then we adjust the workflows around all of this to produce the best results when building the custom tools.