Somewhere I read that in order to be able to understand a newspaper, the reader must already know at least 70% of the information being presented. Without this common 70% the reader simply can't establish enough context to interpret what is being said. The individual words may be known but the meanings and conclusions will be lost or misunderstood. Whether or not 70% is the magic number, I don't really know but the principle is valid.
Next time you sit in a meeting with both business stakeholders and IT professionals, listen to each group and see if they have established 70% common ground with the other listeners. Business folk complain that IT is speaking "technobabble" and IT complains that the business folks "just don't get it." Is it any wonder that the vast majority of IT projects are considered failures? Add to this the fact that both parties may kick off the project without even attempting to define measurable requirements, and it is a wonder that IT projects can get closure at all.
The power of a taxonomy, simple as it is, is to provide a common framework or context for every participant in the discussion. The top level taxonomy provides the big bucket definitions that provide context for everyones words and documentation. It is pretty hard to communicate across disciplines without a high-level taxonomy providing common ground.
© 2008, Mark Ragar Schneider, All Rights Reserved
darn marketing folks!
nice meeting you at the conference :)
Kristin Vassallo
Posted by: Kristin | September 17, 2008 at 01:19 PM