For this assignment, I think the most difficult thing for me was to keep the essay to the three hundred word limit. I tend to pontificate and fall victim to being overly verbose, so one of the peripheral benefits to this course is that it is actually helping me to be more a more concise and effective communicator. I am prone to detailed analogy in my responses so implementing a hard upper limit on the word count forces me to choose my phrasing and expression wisely.

            As for the report, I have years of experience working with reports so I have an idea of what I need to see in an effective report. I find that I’m not as good at presentation of reports, however. It is something that comes with practice; most of my report creation has been in Excel because I love the calculator functionality for number totals and averages, among other things. I find that simpler is better in a report; the more focused the report, the more easily the information can be communicated. The downside to having very focused reporting is that a system can very easily become overloaded with reports, so effective selection of information is critical.

            Perhaps the second most difficult thing I found in this assignment was Part A, the inputs and outputs. I’m finding that I naturally take a practical, iterative design approach: I have to create the processes and work through them a few times to identify the proper inputs and outputs of any use case, process or subsystem. I’m less a theoretical designer, and more of a “conceptual imagineer” and practical, hands-on type of active designer. To use a pottery analogy, I can conceptualize a system of pots or vases and how they work together, but find it difficult to define the detailed process of creating each component without actually working the clay with my hands. I have to feel the clay. I do find that the more I do this, though, the better I get at being able to define the components without working the clay, so to speak.