Managing Projects for Ministry

Append i x 183

The Continuing Reign of Adhocracy: TUMI’s Prototype Shop, continued

As one who has worked on this for years, that is, the fine art of refining for excellence, we will adopt Tim’s informal process and make it our own formal operating procedure in the Shop . We will move from thumbnail sketching, harvesting the best ideas, and working diligently on refining the best ideas until we settle on a final design and product we can endorse. In order to develop this procedure, we will create templates as models and overall examples for various kinds of TUMI learning resource guides (whether manuals, handbooks, booklets, textbooks, tracts, articles, etc.). We will also create templates for our standard types of video and audio formats, Power-Point presentations, and other kinds of educational product structures. We will use these as guides; we can change them if we need to, but beginning our design processes with a standard template will save a great amount of energy and time in the design phase of any prototype. For example, the following outline is Tim’s suggested process for a text-based prototype project (like producing a training manual. Points 1-7 in this model is virtually all Tim’s solid thinking and language!) 1. Create and communicate to all involved what Tim calls “the hierarchy of the material” (e.g., titles, headlines, sub headlines, text, footnotes, page numbering, etc.). Tim suggests that for creating certain text based prototypes that we assign a typographical equivalent to each level (for example, titles will all be set in 24 point bold small caps, headlines in 14 point bold italic, etc.). 2. In developing templates for text based prototypes, we will create a “grid” which establishes page size and orientation, margins, placement of page numbers or other info that appears on every page, any borders or graphic devices.

3. Decide on general typography: justification (rag right or left?), line spacing, kerning of headlines and, of course, fonts.

4. Design graphic elements such as charts, symbols, illustrative elements, graphs.