Clarke, R. J (2001) L213-12: 1

Multimedia in Organisations

BUSS 213

Lecture 12Multimedia Production & Evolutionary Prototyping

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Agenda (1)

in the process of developing an actual multimedia system, the sequences of stages used when collecting, creating, processing, allocating and delivering content – known as workflows- need to be considered in great detail

get your workflows wrong and there is trouble- ineffective media which does not suit your project needs likely to provided late or not at all

related to the issue of appropriate workflows, is the actual systems development process itself…

…how to sequence development activities, how to organise development tasks and how to project manage the development of complex multimedia development process is crucial to successful multimedia development and your career success

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Agenda (2)

multimedia development is in most cases many times more complex that traditional development because you are dealing with multiple media

we describe and advocate the use of evolutionary prototyping as the only real way of delivering what users want faced with the complexity of the development tasks themselves

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Development as Social Process

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Development as Social Process Design Problems & Solutions

from a previous lecture we identified that it was the nature of design problems and solutions to be complex and social

Problemscan’t be comprehensively statedrequire subjective interpretationtend to be hierarchically organised

Solutionsinexhaustible number of different solutionsno optimal solutions to design problems

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Development as Social ProcessAnalysis and Functional Requirements

to ensure that a completed system does what it is intended to do it is necessary to determine what is needed

statements about what is needed in a system are referred to system requirements or functional requirements

if you don’t have any requirements you will not know what you are trying to building

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Development as Social ProcessRequirements Evolve over Time

it is true that we may never have the final answer on what all the system requirements are at any point in time

requirements evolve as a consequence of us attempting to identify them the activity of identifying requirements changes what we thought we knew about what we wanted to do

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Development as Social ProcessApproaches differ concerning Requirements

there is the major distinction between: traditional systems development which

assumes that you can find a fixed set of system requirements that are assumed not to change during the process of systems development – and

prototyping approaches which assume that requirements change over time

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Development as Social ProcessRequirements and Systems Analysis

regardless of your view on the nature of requirements without an attempt to identify and codify them an effective system cannot be built

any information system development project including an organisational multimedia system needs to have methods that help determine the functionality- systems analysis

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Development as Social Process‘Solutions’ are matters of convenience

at some point we may well converge on a solution- in which case we might artificially decide to ‘finish’ part of the system- that’s OK as long as we can also restart the search for modified requirements if we need to

the false assumption that you should be able to fix your analysis and design is referred to pre-specification- in fact you can never really know when all aspects of the problem emerged- some may never be fully uncovered

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Development as Social ProcessDesign Process (1)

there are a vast number of ways in which we could actually develop a multimedia system

need methods to assist us in identifying ways to provide functionality to groups of users

must assist different people in a development team communicate with each other because each member of multimedia team brings with them their own disparate sets of terminology and concepts- when we ask questions about how to provide the functionality we are involved in systems design

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Development as Social Process Design Process & Project Management

assuming you can decide on what you want to do then supporting this process requires considerable management (as we shall see…)

the reason is that design decision are never isolated- design decisions made now will likely effect the results of previous decisions

previous design decisions are linked together as if by a web and so design looks like it is constraint based …

… and in complex systems deelopment you need project management techniques to assist

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Development as Social ProcessDesign Process is Constraint-based: Example

a constraint imposed early in the development process on the maximum size of the video template- a consequence of the text widget…

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Development as Social ProcessDesign Process is Constraint-based: Example

influenced the maximum size of the VR on the screen (based on one of its own internal constraints- the aspect ratio of the media)- purple area is the difference between them

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Development as Social ProcessDesign Process is Constraint-based: Example

importance of this is that these media come from different members of the development team- videographers and VR photographers and a VR stitcher - plus the interface is being programmed and designed by a graphic artist

Communication amongst the development team is important so that they know: which constraints are being effected and they can follow a chain of reasoning which enables

them to negotiate the changes

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Development as Social ProcessRole of Communication

systems development, implementation and maintenance is highly dependent on the skills of large numbers of IT professionals

communication processes and social interactions within the developer community are of great importance

changes in development practices, whether related to technology or organisational issues, are always driven and mediated by social factors

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EDM

Branch to a more detailed presentation Evolutionary Development MethodologiesClarke 2000 EDM

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Project Management

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Project ManagementRelationship to Workflows

in order to effectively edit you need to know what you want to achieve

knowing the answer to this question determines the choice between two distinct digital video editing workflows know as editing strategies regardless of the specifications of the final output (film, broadcast video, CD-ROM, or Web)

any efficiencies that can be gained in individual workflow like video editing improve the rest of the development process

CEDIR, University of Wollongong

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Project ManagementVideo Editing Workflow: Media 100 NLE Suite

CEDIR, University of Wollongong

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Project ManagementDigital Video Editing Workflows

(b) Offline to Online

(a) Online Only

Capture atOutput Quality

Import &Edit

Export to Tape or Digital Movie File

Capture at Low Quality with Timecode

Import &Edit

OfflineComplete

Online EditSuite

Edit DecisionList

Recapture at High Quality with Timecode

Export to Tape or Digital Movie File

Source: Based on Bolante (2001, xviii)

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Project Managementits Role during Development

project Management is essential to determine how efficiently each of the constituent workflows can be organised so that the costs are reduced

we can use cost and/or (as one means) of streamlining individual workflows… we saw an example of this with photographic versus digital VR

project management must always be present during the development

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Project ManagementMaking Multimedia (Vaughan 1998, 430)

AnalysisAnalyse the Need, Cost, Content, market technology, delivery medium

Pretesting Define the project goals, skillset needs, create the content outline, position sales &

marketing, create prototype on paper Prototype Development

Build the screen mockups, Design content maps, Design human interface, Develop story/messages, Test Prototype

Alpha Development Detail the storyboards & Flowcharts, finalise story scripts, produce sound & video,

solve technical problems, test working prototype Beta Development

Distribute to limited tester list, Respond to bug reports, Prepare user docs, Prepare packaging, Develop gold candidates, Announce to press & PR lists

Delivery Prepare technical support, Install sales team, Replicate gold master, Pay bonuses,

Hold Launch Party!

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Project ManagementProblems with Prototyping

one risk associated with evolutionary development and all forms of prototyping that can be eliminated with careful project management is a condition known as endless prototyping-where developers and users get caught in a spiral of indecision

project management with the sole purpose of ensuring that costs are not overrun is useless to system development and often resented by members of the development team

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Project ManagementMeta information supports Development

the best project management is not conducted to enable managers to control development but rather to assist developers in creating the best possible multimedia system

project management is at its heart about providing information about the state of the project- it is concerned solely with meta information- information about the development project

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Project ManagementGood Multimedia Project Management

good project management is possible only if the development project has: consistent content design processes (workflows- see

for example the discussion on QuickTimeVR workflows in Lecture 6)

consistent interface design my experience is that a product can be produced

and is likely also to be produced better: if you know what you have to do now, what you have

done, and what you need to do failure to know these things means that content and

control can be missing and a prototype would be judged as bad or incomplete

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Project ManagementIntegral to Development Team

just as we need high quality media resources in order to make a great multimedia system we similarly need great project management

in the sense project management should not be thought of any differently to any other skill needed in the development team

participative systems development does not stop at the design team- developers should have a say in how project management is conducted

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Project Managementas a communicative process

project management just as media production and interface design- must be a communicative process- it must also be reflexive ie. involved in a continuous improvement of its own processes

effective project management strategies emerge out of attempting to solve impediments/breakdowns to the communicative process of multimedia design

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Project ManagementParticipation & Deliverables…

participative systems development also implies that the design team should have a say in how project management deliverables are designed and used

best project management deliverables are ‘light-weight’ and directed at supporting (not reporting) development- that is useful and productive

an example occurred in the BHP multimedia project…

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the BHP project is big enough that we can easily forget whether we have completed parts of the project

this project management deliverable evolved because all members of the development team needed to know the state of the media for which they were responsible (uncoupled the development team members)…

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Project ManagementRelationship between Media & Interface

similar to your first assignment where we talked about the existence of low-level interface components that could be grouped together to form high-level interface components: at a conceptual level: the relationship between media and

user interface design is a matter of constituency- this enables media production staff and user interface designers to talk to each other

at a practical level: domain specific techniques and practices enable media production and interface design to maintain disciplinary distinctiveness and so contribute usefully to the development process- this distinctiveness enables activities to be performed independently

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Project ManagementDevelopment Process must be supported

Media Production(workflows, coverage, etc)

who did it? what technologies were used? what skills were needed? how long did it take? how much did it cost?

Goals: best possible media Means: consistent content design

processes (workflows)

User Interface(HCI, usability, actability)

what events trigger content? how is the content presented? how does the user control the media? what is the degree of interactivity? how does content relate to each other?

Goals: great interface design, usability, actability, simplicity, consistency appropriacy

Means: high level and low level interface components

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Project ManagementRelationship to Development Activities

Various Kinds of Project Management Deliverables are developed and exchanged between Media Production (content)

and User Interface Design (form) activities

Media Production

Interface Design

ProjectManagement

Domain Specific Techniques and Practices enable Media Production and Interface Design

activities to be performed independently

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Project ManagementMultimedia Development Process

Production MeetingsStoryboarding

Structured Walkthroughs

Media Production

Interface Design

ProjectManagement

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Conclusions

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Conclusions

Just as Development is a social process so to should project management be considered a social process

Project management is even more important in prototyping (especially if using EDM) than it is for conventional systems development approaches (Systems Development Lifecycle SDLC based approaches)

Project management should be considered the servant of development- if possible its deliverables should be designed to support the work of the team

Project management should be seen as a responsibility of the team rather than means by which management can monitor expenditures

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Readings

Bolante, A. (2001) Premiere for Macintosh & Windows Visual Quickstart Guide Peachpit Press