Structure

In order for every team member to use their own set of tools, the team and stakeholders need to define the properties and qualities of the artifacts they require. As long as the artifacts provide the required properties and can be used in following processes seamlessly, it is not important how the artifacts are created. The artifacts need to be accessible for interested stakeholders via a single point of access.

An artifact is the result of a work process. It may be used directly by a stakeholder or may be the input for another process. Properties of artifacts especially include the format of an artifact. For instance a user manual for a product may be a large PDF or a website with multiple HTML 5 pages.

Companies may define a set of tools that they support while not prohibiting to use other tools. This would help team members without prior knowledge or team members who are indifferent of which tool to use for a particular job to get started quickly.

Advantages

• Experts want their job done effectively and efficiently. Allowing them to use their own tools would support them in their tasks.
• Working effectively and efficiently is more fun.
• Not dictating the selection of tools provides space for innovation and learning.

Disadvantages

• The cost of tools would be reduced if everyone on the team would use the same tool for a particular task. To reduce the cost it would be help if experts communicate to discuss the pros and cons of their tools. The company may define a set of tools as preferred, while not prohibiting the use of others.
• Best practices is knowledge a team developed in getting things done. This includes processes and tools. If the set of tools is very diverse, a team may not benefit from best practices as much as a team that commonly uses the same tools. Again, companies may define a set of preferred tools to reduce the negative impact of this.
• Defining the properties and qualities of artifacts needs time. But it may also improve the quality of employed processes by making them more explicit and producible.
• Converting formats may require to create some additional automation processes. This requires additional resources which must not outweigh the resources spared by the employment of different tools.

Related Practices

The following practices are related to this practice.