IA Summit panel: The place of IA in design processes

Update (Feb 4, 2007): the session now has its own page, so I updated the URL.

My proposal for a panel at the IA Summit was accepted: I will moderate a panel on design processes! The official title is "Where does IA fit in the design process?" and you can find its description on the IA Summit website.

It always feels weird to I submit a proposal to a conference that I'm organizing. It happened again when I entered my panel proposal to the submission system for the IA Summit. Still, this year's review process assured that my proposal was judged by independent reviewers.

Panelists
And the reviewers liked what I'd done. I got high scores on the selection of panelists (9.3 on a scale of 1-10 on "Expertise of the moderator and panelists") and I am indeed proud to have "the girls-whose-name-start-with-an-L" on-board: Larisa Warnke, Livia Labate and Leisa Reichelt, as well as Peter Merholz and Josh Seiden. One reviewer said it like this: "I think the real value of this panel is in that you have chosen a bunch of senior folks who have a real strategy and practice development insight."

Topics
As I wrote in the description of the panel, I plan on asking them these questions:

• When should IAs be part of a design team?
• How do IAs work together with other design team members?
• How do you communicate your design process to clients?
• How do you measure improvements in your design process?

(and, if time permits, others, like the ones I also tried to ask at the EURO IA panel on the same topic: who is responsible for the process? what does your process look like? when do you decide to change the process? where does your process end? how did you learn about processes? why would a project not follow the process?)

Your input
What questions do you have about design processes and the place IA activities have in them? Ask them in the comments, and I'll see what I can do!

P.S.: If you like this topic and you plan on coming to the Summit, please consider adding this panel to your list of can't-miss sessions on the vote form.