Draft of a new policy for our site

Question

I would suggest a new simple policy for the site, related to answers. Every answer should:

1. Refer to some officially recognized body of knowledge (PMBOK, Agile Manifesto, PRINCE2, RUP, MSF, Scrum, Kanban, etc)
2. Generalize the question
3. Point readers to new subjects of learning

For example, somebody asks "How detailed technical documentation should be in a small project?"

A possible answer may sound like: "I would recommend to document technical decisions in high-level UML diagrams, and revise them every sprint/iteration. In general, Agile Manifesto recommends to focus on working software instead of documentation, although I recommend to read CMMI TS process area which explains the importance of technical documentation. Read Martin Fowler's "UML Distilled" and Len Brass et al.'s "Software Architecture in Practice"".

This answer (just an example) contains author's personal opinion, grounded by two standards. It also generalizes the question and gives the reader some direction of further learning.

By "generalization of a question" we should mean an ability of the answering person to present the problem from a higher point of abstraction than it was originally asked. As in the example above, somebody asked about documentation in a small project, while the answer also talks about documentation in general. Generalization is an opposite to specialization, which we should try to avoid in our answers.

Answer 1

I'm not that negative all the time, but no offense, I don't like this proposal. Because, it takes away the experience which is most the valuable part of project management and we are creating more rules how a question should be written and answered, which is not good.

Personally, I don't care much about the officially recognized knowledge, because there can be a good answer which fits, but the person who answers may have never read about it, just did it. And this is fine by me. I'd rather read his answer than an RTFM with a link.

I liked this question, although somebody else got the answer flag: Can separate roles in DSDM Atern be handled by the same person?. Even if I gave a reference, the OP found another more useful, which is good thing.

So from me, +1 for the personal opinion and -1 for the generalization, sorry.

Answer 2

@Zsolt brings up a good point.

Should the site's success be gauged by how well we answer people's questions or whether it is a source for cutting edge project management knowledge?

We are doing well in the former, but not building up the latter.

I would argue that we need to build up the site as a source of project management knowledge and that this, in turn, will lead to being more valuable for the entire community.

Yegor's approach can help get us there, with that caveat that there are clear cases where experience can be authoritative and as useful. Though these generally happen on the cutting edge of project management and not in areas where people can Google the answer or read a book.

Answer 3

I think we need to consider the process of induction versus deduction. Induction is where we learn; deduction is where we confirm. This is important because many problems encountered on projects may not have been experienced before or at the level where documented solutions exist. Through induction, we find solutions through innovation, creativity, adding to new schools of thought that, eventually, will find its way into formal documentation when the academics grab it. This process of induction is how methods and solutions evolve and causing others to become extinct.

Deduction is where academics prove or disprove what comes out induction. This is where you will find most of your documentation and things to point to to substantiate your answer. But my point is, the process starts with us, the fools on the ground doing the work...NOT the academics who study it.

Personally, I want to participate on a site where people are able to answer a question with new thinking. There are a lot of greater thinkers on this site and I want to hear from them to hear something I have never heard before. Sure, I may reject wholesale or partially his/her thinking; however, there may be a thread that someone or I grab and from that leads to some compelling and interesting point of view...that might find itself in a new method derived by the academics some five years later. Who knows!

I enjoy this process of induction, personally. I like coming up with new theories all the time...sometimes I can support it with other relevant theories, other times not. But this is how we learn. I suppose I imagine this site similar to a think tank. Indeed, a lot of what happens in think tanks pull from existing literature, but there are a lot of question asking, answering, and thinking without that.

Answer 4

One of the first things I learned about the PM was that there are no silver bullets and there are no solutions that work out of the box. Time after time, case after case, project manager needs to introduce an abstract idea into a real environment. So, in answers I mostly value experience of a writer contained in a response.

Secondly, the recognized body of knowledge term is a bit indefinable. Recognized by who? Reader, writer or moderator? Shall we stick to the existing ones or allow creation of new bodies? Remember how the Agile Manifesto arisen? What if there are couple of people using a new approach but are not recognized publicly?

Lastly, I am affraid it is not what the users want:

• asker want to know the answer, only after that there is a value in generalizing the question,
• answerer may not have a time to search for a links - knowing about some rule is not equal to knowing where it was described by the "authorities" (and it may not be as well described as some bloggers do)
• probably the most of us wouldn't like the LEAN vs SCRUM, or RUP vs PRINCE fights which I am affraid will follow. If one brings authorities with her then the arguing usually takes place on the authorities level. Especially if a question is not a general one and the body of knowledge hasn't described the practice in a detailed way.

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Edit: As an answer to the jmort253 comment:

If I had to come with a solution I would agree with what was already said:

Personally, I want to participate on a site where people are able to answer a question with new thinking. There are a lot of greater thinkers on this site and I want to hear from them to hear something I have never heard before.

and

Having said that, I believe that adding references would improve many answers, so why not have it as a guideline and not a strict policy?

So my version of such guideline could be even described in "manifesto style":

• We value your point of view and willingness to share and we believe it can be even better with the references to your source of knowledge.
• We value every answer that helps solve the problem and we believe it is often better if an answer is more generalized than the question.

Answer 5

There are questions that simply begs for experience-based, sometimes even opinionated, answers. Zsolt's question that jmort253 mentions is a good example.

By the way: I did an experiment and added a couple of referrals to my answer. Is it better now? And, before you rush to confirm, it is just reference to my earlier writings on the subject, which is still experience-based and not theory-based.

Of course I haven't referred to a specific body of knowledge regarding one of common methods applied in project management, but I guess we don't want to narrow the site down so much.

Having said that, I believe that adding references would improve many answers, so why not have it as a guideline and not a strict policy?

I know that some people would just ignore guideline but we can still use redirect people to it wherever applicable and this way coaching users to get good-quality answers.

Answer 6

This question, Shall I use my project management style when I'm substituting for my colleague, while he is away?, asked by Zsolt and answered by our two top contributors, is a perfect example of why I think Yegor proposed this new policy.

First, Zsolt asked a great question! Second, the answers are outstanding. Both answers are from respected experts in our community, and I'm happy it's currently on our front page!

But as someone who considers himself still learning, who hasn't ever substituted for another PM, I'm unsure of which answer is right for me. While both can technically be "correct", even though they differ, which option should I employ?

This is the problem that I feel we need to solve.