We’re all familiar with the problems that come from not documenting requirements, designs, plans, and expectations. You wind up with slipped deadlines and disappointment. Most of us have learned the hard way that we’re better off writing down important agreements and plans.

In fact, so much of product management depends upon written documents to spell out needs and plans. Documents are critical to product management.

But I also see a problem with relying too much on documents such as requirements, development plans, test plans, analysis and reports to carry most or all of the burden of communicating important demands, agreements, and results across the organization. I call this the Paper Document Culture.