Conference 7.286::digital

    Have you tried talking to their managment, pointing out the benefits
    to the project of using the open communication medium of Notes?
    If they have a problem with their mangement, even a perceived problem
    and not a real one, only their mangement can solve it with them.

    Andreas,

    	In a former life I faced a similar problem in a nearly identical
    situation.  It is very difficult for people not used to working in an
    electronic communications environment to become comfortable doing so. 
    Further, it may be the case that your customer people come from a
    political environment that includes "witch hunts" spawned from pieces
    of team communications, reports etc.  I would suggest that (if you have
    not already done so) you poke into the "critical success factors" for
    you customer team members and pay particular attention to what events
    they believe would be career limiting.

    	I would also suggest the following:

    	1. I assume you have regular team technical meetings.  I would
    suggest that you make the minutes from the meeting available ONLY
    through notes.  The customer people will be motivated to read the
    information (they want to know what you are writing down after all) and
    having to read NOTES to get the information will provide them with some
    gentle, non-threatening motivation to learn how to make SOME use of the 
    tool.

    	2. Begin to use NOTES exclusively for the discussion of PURELY
    TECHNICAL ISSUES that need addressing outside the normal course of team
    meetings.  You can effectively argue that it is critical to the success
    of the project that you document the entire history of your technical 
    decisions where all the participants can get to them as needed.  I would 
    suggest that this be kind of your central focus; the success of the 
    project and what that means to the customer team members.

    	3. Avoid, for as long as possible, having to use notes to discuss
    issues that are beyond the PURELY TECHNICAL in nature.  It is here that
    the paranoia about what the management sees is going to be most
    pronounced.  (Maybe you want to start another, restricted, conference
    for these kind of issues).

    	4. Arrange as much individual coaching and one-on-one training as
    you can with the customer team members.  It is likely that they have
    never seen or dealt with something like NOTES and so will be "concerned"
    with its implications.  Remember, most fear arises from ignorance.

    	5. Put together a management briefing that precisely and concisely
    demonstrates the tremendous value of NOTES in a project environment. 
    If your customer team members feel their management "appreciates" the
    value provided by NOTES, odds are they will be more open to using them. 
    Also, in the briefing, be sure to explain what NOTES are expected to be
    used for and what they are NOT to be used for.

    	6. See if you can set everybody up with an auto-extract notes
    utility so that every morning when they come in they can find some new
    reminder of the tremendous value of the medium.



    	In my case, I was a product manager/program manager/architect for
    an AI based manufacturing automation product.  I was using up to six
    different third parties in three different countries as well as an 
    internal staff of 14 people.  When we finally able to get a "NOTE-like" 
    system set up I notice a marked improvement in the quality and timeliness 
    of the individual Deliverables, people rapidly came to have a much better
    overall understanding of the product, issues that were raised we
    addressed much sooner, the product documentation improved markedly and
    the folks tagged for the maintenance and support effort following
    product release became very enthusiastic about what they were going to be
    doing.
    
    (ps-Never ONCE did my management even TRY to LEARN how to use the 
    conference let alone look through it).

    	I don't attribute ALL this to electronic conferencing but I am
    certain that it had a good deal to do with it.  I have NEVER (in my 15+
    years in the computer business) seen a project which did not benefit
    SIGNIFICANTLY from improved communications.

    			Good luck,


    					Pete
     

    Within NOTES, there is a capability to restrict access thereby making
    the file accessable only by selected individuals.  I have seen this
    used several times and the value is significant.  It eliminates
    the block that "Big Brother" may be watching; it would be an excellent
    vehicle to communicate and track project progress, problems, bugs
    and open issues without the redundancy of sending mail to a cast
    of x.  This may be a solution.
    
    Jay

    Granted many people at DIGITAL have found notes to be a useful mechnism
    for sharing project information.  However this is a JOINT
    customer/Digital project.   These people have their own development
    methodology.
    
    Have you considered the fact that any development tool in which
    one faction of the team is much more experienced (or preceived to
    be) with than the other creates a situation where the inexperienced
    faction feels to be at a disadvantage.
    
    Having done many customer oriented projects with a variety of
    developers, tools for scheduling, project control, tracking, development
    tools, CASE environments, etc. are all perceived as unfair advantages.

    Hammering out the project overhead tools, policies and activities
    is something all of the developers should get involved with.
    
    Any attempt to force "good digital behavior" upon half your development
    team will fail.
    
    -Kevin
        
    

   Thanks for all the valuable suggestions so far, it is certainly
   encouraging to find, that we're not the first ones faced with such
   a problem.

  re .3 

   I quite agree Pete, the way we've gone about this so far, is pretty much
   what you suggest in points 1 thru 5.

   Barry's suggestion in .2 sounds an excellent one, and I'm sure this should
   get the ball rolling.


.5> Any attempt to force "good digital behavior" upon half your development
.5> team will fail.

   This being a joint development Kevin, it's more a point of active 
   encouragement rather than forcing, and notes is simply an invaluable 
   tool both for development and subsequent maintenance.

   The joint project management team has already endorsed the use of notes
   and the customer, has after all, purchased the tool.


   I guess part of the problem might also be 'cultural', us Central Europeans,
   don't take easily to computer conferencing. So its going to be a gradual 
   process.

   Best regards,

   Andreas.

   PS. Already had three new topics today by non-DECies, guess all your good
       suggestions must have reinvigorated my little campaing ;-)

    You could try a totally non-threatening notes file to get people
    used to the idea.  Maybe a notes file to discuss ideas for social
    activities like the Christmas party, etc.  They could try it out
    on something other than work topics.
    
    SKE
    

I am currently working on a LARGE (~60 member) cooperateve development
project.  It is being done at a customer site, with customer personnel
participating, and with several subcontractor teams (Digital is prime
contractor).  We would die without notes.  The larger the team, the more
useful notes is.  You just can't be on every distribution list.  Discussions
which aren't directly relevant to you often take a turn which does affect
you.

Point out to them the benefit of being informed of all technical issues
WHEN they want to read up on them, regardless of whether or not they
would ordinarily be on the distribution lists.

If the over-the-shoulder syndrome is a block, think about setting up
a restricted conference.  Here, each team has a public conference to discuss
global issues, and a restricted conference in which to document and discuss
things that we don't necessarily want published to the world.

Purely employee-interest files (if you can get management to approve) are
probably the best way to get folks used to regularly using notes.

Good luck!
Kevin