Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
The best visual description of a company I've ever seen (37signals.com)
2 points by apgwoz on Dec 13, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment


Here is one example of how I use Excel to visually convey information about complex systems on a daily basis.

http://i.imgur.com/FdYVB.png

With these, we use various views to convey the information in a layered format - meaning we step through the problems with many representations to make it understandable to those not familiar with the systems/technologies etc... but are the key decision makers with respect to approval/budget/design.

In this case, we are documenting the integrations and dependencies of a range of technologies communicating over a common converged network.

I try to evolve these diagrams each time as everyone becomes more familiar with the project specifics and the over-arching language of the design.

Generally speaking, the blue squares represent work/cost/effort/support/design is needed to get the desired functionality.

This helps capture the real amount of effort and work to make an entire system function.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: