Comments for Project Portfolio Management Goes Agile at http://www.projecttimes.com , comment 1 to 2 out of 2 comments http://www.projecttimes.com Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:24:56 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.projecttimes.com/claude-emond/project-portfolio-management-goes-agile.html#comment-307 very good points. I agree with what you say about caring for those issues. Knoledge of the human interface is a key success factor for project delivery, not only wrt the human end0users but also wrt the humans working hopefully as a team to deliver the project. And yes, multitasking sucks and yes perceptions must be managed - claudeemond Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:46:04 +0100 http://www.projecttimes.com/claude-emond/project-portfolio-management-goes-agile.html#comment-279 Don't ignore that the users are human. Almost everybody seems ignorant of some basic facts about the software we create. No matter how efficient, on time, and bug free it is, when the users of it are human, it is vital to take universal human characteristics into account. In particular, the inconvenient truth is that humans can only pay conscious attention to one thing at a time. When we do more than one thing, all the rest must be so well learned that their operation is automatic for us. When we walk and chew gum, one must be automatic. When folks are just learning to drive, they cannot safely also carry on a discussion about something else with their passenger. When they are dealing with their work, using a computer, their focus of attention cannot also be on the state of the computer. This has major implications about the details of the program they are using. If it deploys a modal dialog box, for example, that is guaranteed to interrupt the user's train of thought. Further any event on the screen that is not at the user's focus of attention will often be missed entirely. If your project goals include making the application work well for the users, that demands careful design to accommodate the facts that cognitive science has discovered about humans. The best overview of these needs I know of is "The Humane Interface" by Jef Raskin, the Macintosh guy. His brief summary of the principles and rules is available on Nitpicker.pbworks.com under the book title. - Nitpicker Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:14:57 +0100