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July 16, 2005 
Applicability Matrix Tool for Information Radiators
Notes:
For individuals, the use of Information Radiators is usually not applicable in rote work since the individual can keep track of status of such work easily. However, for adaptive and creative work, an information radiator can be quite useful as a constant reminder of what is happening or for organizing work to be done. A cork board for the status of tasks or for categorizing ideas can be a simple information radiator used by an individual. A whiteboard can be used for free-form notes.
For teams, information radiators are ideal for easily maintaining broadcast communication with team members. A team is usually small enough that an information radiator can be maintained by individuals making updates as appropriate. Project status of tasks, issues parking lots, and group calendars are examples of information radiators used by teams.
For a community, the difficulty of using an information radiator comes in the logistics. With a large number of people performing work, possibly never all coming together at the same time, the broadcast nature of information radiators can be severly curtailed. It is difficult to efficiently represent information that is relevent to the whole communit in a way that can be easily accessed and easily understood at a glance. As well, it is difficult to have community members directly and (relatively) equally participate. That said, there are some exceptions. The most obvious one is the various wikis that are maintained by communities... and the largest of these is Wikipedia.
Related articles can be found in the following categories:
Coaching
, Consulting
, Culture
, Howto
, Management
, Teams
I also maintain a page of references and recommended links to materials related to agile methods.
Posted by Mishkin Berteig at July 16, 2005 06:45 PM
