Part of the Knowledge Curation series.
I’m occasionally asked “What’s the most re-usable bit of a model – where should I start?“.
It’s a fair question, and answer #1 is always The Glossary.
But answer #2 is a variation: it’s the overview of a project.
Sounds like an obscure piece of information: after all, surely the goals for that project, or it’s stakeholders are more interesting. But everyone who looks at the goals or the stakeholders would also benefit from a ‘project summary in one paragraph’. Or in 3 paragraphs. Or in one pretty diagram (not a model diagram – a diagram from the PowerPoint introduction presentation).
In turns out that these simple introductions get read, and re-used, time after time. Sure, they aren’t part of the formal deliverables from the project, but think how you’d introduce a new person to the project- you’d give them the ‘5 minute introduction’.
And for sure EVERY document you create about the project will have this ‘5 minute introduction’ right at the front, which is why I think it’s so useful.
I tend to have a range of ‘context’ information:
- Project/Program in one paragraph (no diagrams)
- …in 3 paragraphs
- …in one diagram
..and I might use (1) and (3) together, or (2) and (3).
No rocket science, but then much of knowledge curation is applied common sense.
