Big Architect, Little Architect

First came the primordial soup. Thousands of relatively simple single-celled web sites appeared on the scene, and each one was quickly claimed by a multi-functional organism called a "webmaster." A symbiotic relationship quickly became apparent. Webmaster fed web site. Web site got bigger and more important. So did the role of the webmaster. Life was good. Then, bad things started to happen. The size and complexity and importance of the web sites began to spiral out of control. Mutations started cropping up. Strange new organisms with names like interaction designer, usability engineer, customer experience analyst, and information architect began competing with the webmaster and each other for responsibilities and rewards. Equilibrium had been punctuated and we entered the current era of rapid speciation and specialization.

Morville, Peter. Argus Center (2000). Articles>Web Design>Interaction Design>Project Management

Featuritis (or Creeping Featurism)

Featuritis or creeping featurism is the tendency for the number of features in a product (usually software product) to rise with each release of the product. What may have been a cohesive and consistent design in the early versions may end up as a patchwork of added features. And with extra features comes extra complexity.

Soegaard, Mads. Interaction-Design.org. Articles>Usability>Interaction Design>Project Management

Notes on the Role of Project Managers in Interface Design

This describes the role that I played as program manager for IE5.0, and the basic process we used (the essay is derived from an old post to chiweb). It's a good anecdote as to how one team managed the cross discipline work of design and usability, with the engineering and development process.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2002). Articles>Management>Project Management>Interaction Design

Organizational Culture 101: A Practical How-To For Interaction Designers

It’s happened to all of us. We walk into what we think is a Web redesign project, only to find we have unwittingly ignited the fires of WW III in our client’s organization. What begins as a simple design project descends – quickly – into an intra-organizational battle, with the unprepared interaction designer caught in the crossfire. What is it about design projects that seem to attract such power struggles? Contrary to what you might think, being stuck in the middle of an internecine battle is actually an opportunity to effect meaningful change on your client’s organization. But it requires a set of practical tools to negotiate these battles and a more sophisticated language and knowledge to exploit these events to create meaningful change.

Ladner, Sam. Johnny Holland (2009). Articles>Project Management>Interaction Design>Workplace