Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
from vendors/partners), that message should in all likelihood be posted
to a publicly available forum. Most project portals specifically include
project-level forums so that they can maintain a public record of design
and support discussions. Use them! Information that is exchanged over
email ultimately has to be copied over to project documentation. This
rarely happens, and when it does, the information that is copied over is
usually incomplete.
This rule also goes for social media. Do not hold design discussions
over Facebook, Google+, or Twitter. Discussions scattered randomly
across the Internet are difficult to track down and place in context, and
are often not publicly visible. All of these factors make using them as
references for design decisions challenging at best, and nearly useless
at worst.
Do use social media to connect to people outside your project. Social
media platforms are great for reaching a larger audience. Use them to
share resources from your project's site (e.g., news announcements,
forum posts with awesome videos), but avoid having technical discus-
sions over social media. Do you want to reach out to a social network
for help? Try one of these two options:
Start the discussion on project forums, post a link to the forum
on social media, and lock comments on the social media post.
If you feel you simply must have a technical discussion in a so-
cial media context, post the question on the social media site, en-
suring when possible the post and comments are visible to users
who don't have an account on the social media site. Then post
the best suggestions (with link back to post/comments on social
media site) on your project's wiki or forums. This is a risky
move, as you must remember to actually capture the results of
the technical discussion in your project's documentation.
Use a balance of synchronous and asynchronous discussions. Project
teams need to balance synchronous discussions (e.g., meetings, video
conferences, live chats) and asynchronous discussions (e.g., forum
posts, blog posts with comments). Each style serves a different func-
tion. Meetings and other synchronous discussions allow for direct and
complex interactions in real time. These interactions are especially
good for finalizing decisions and working through complex issues that
do not have obvious answers. Forums and other asynchronous discus-
