marie said:
What does the term "outline the project by using intentions" mean? While
teaching a Project class I was told by one of my students that their
supervisor told him that he should outline in this manner.
Marie,
I've have never heard that expression before and I guess the only way to
know for sure what it means is to ask the supervisor who spoke it.
Even though I can't give you a hard answer I can certainly infer what it
means. Few things in life are black and white. There are always shades
of grey and one of the more direct shades is the "intent". Many years
ago when I was a new employee at my company there was a discussion about
the information on an engineering drawing. I was surprised when a
supervisor said that the drawing's main purpose was to convey the
engineering intent. To someone who doesn't understand engineering
drawings that statement sounds very wishy washy, like, "how can that be
valid, it leaves the end result to interpretation". True. However, to
someone who does understand engineering drawings and is in the business
of building to them, engineering intent is actually more important than
the literal meaning.
To translate this concept to your question, I believe the supervisor
meant that the activities necessary to perform a plan must focus on the
intent rather than the explicit detail. Here's an example of this
concept. Often in this newsgroup, users ask an explicit question on how
to do something. In some cases, those of us who have several years of
experience may ask the question, "ok I can probably tell this person how
to do this, but what is this person really trying to do?" In other
words, what is their end gaol or their intent. Once intent is known, a
whole new realm of solutions may present themselves, and it is quite
likely that one or more of those alternate solutions will get to the end
goal quicker and with less effort.
Make sense? I'm not sure if I answered your question, but at least you
have one person's perspective.
John
Project MVP
