The Answer Isn't More Documentation; It's Better Visibility

Bart has been in ecommerce for over 20 years, and can't imagine a better job to have. He is interested in all things agile, or anything new to learn.

  Communications Management   Organizational Project Management   Risk Management  

I recently went in depth on Why Invisible Work Creates Visible Problems. Now I want to show how this can happen in an all-too familiar scenario.

When the project steering committee met on the first Monday of the month, there was little reason for concern. The dashboard was almost entirely green with just a smattering of yellow. The schedule showed every milestone on track, the budget was within tolerance, and the risk register listed only a handful of low-impact items, all with mitigation plans already in place.

The project manager walked leadership through the status update in less than ten minutes. Questions were few, confidence was high, and the meeting ended early with the familiar phrase, "I'll give everyone back 12 minutes."

The project involved integrating a new customer portal with several existing systems. The team was experienced, collaborative, and moving quickly. Developers discussed technical issues in Slack throughout the day. Product managers refined requirements in shared documents as new customer feedback arrived. Architects held quick Zoom calls to resolve design questions instead of waiting for the next scheduled meeting. AI generated draft test cases, summarized meetings, and helped developers evaluate implementation options in minutes instead of hours or even days.

None of this was unusual. In fact, it reflected exactly how …

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