Cyclical Information Management

The amount information that you need for project, especially retail projects, can be quite extensive. From our experiences as retail architects we learned that especially in retail project the information not comes not only in large amounts, but can be extremely complex as well. Because these projects can run for a number of years, the information is likely to change which makes it even more complex. We refer to it as dynamic information.

From our experience in producing paper manuals (that are outdated from the moment they are published) and the numerous attempts of other people we decided to develop a web based dynamic information system in cooperation with ABN AMRO Bank (not one of the most boring banks at the moment). During the development, we used the cyclical concept on two levels. Firstly, the basic concept of the information system is cyclical in the way it works, and secondly the basic concept was improved in a number of cycles, mainly by feedback from the users of the information management system.

One of my colleagues, Maurits Ruis (he has by the way a very interesting weblog - SustainaBrazil - about sustainability in Brazil) is writing a book about the whole development process. The name of the book will be ‘(visual) architecture - retail banking and information management’. The book will be made available freely at the Inbo Retail site.