Straw man proposal
Encyclopedia
A "straw-man proposal", also known as an Aunt Sally
, is a brainstormed
simple proposal intended to generate discussion of its disadvantages and to provoke the generation of new and better proposals. Often, a straw man document will be prepared by one or two people prior to kicking off a larger project. In this way, the team can jump start their discussions with a document that is likely to contain many, but not all the key aspects to be discussed. As the document is revised, it may be given other edition names such as the more solid-sounding "stone-man", "iron-man", and so on.
The term can also be referred to as business jargon.
. In the High Order Language Working Group (HOLWG) the process to define Ada generated requirements documents sporting different names, representing the various stages of development of the Ada language, as described in 1993 by Col Wm Whitaker. in an article ACM SIGPLAN notices. They were:
Other references include the following document THE ADA ENVIRONMENT, LTC Rodney A. Edge, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, DC 20307, Thomas A. Marciniak, M.D., National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20205
Aunt Sally
thumb|right|312px|A drawing from the 1911 edition of Whiteley's General Catalogue.Aunt Sally is a traditional throwing game. The term is often used metaphorically to mean something that is a target for criticism...
, is a brainstormed
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a group creativity technique by which a group tries to find a solution for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members...
simple proposal intended to generate discussion of its disadvantages and to provoke the generation of new and better proposals. Often, a straw man document will be prepared by one or two people prior to kicking off a larger project. In this way, the team can jump start their discussions with a document that is likely to contain many, but not all the key aspects to be discussed. As the document is revised, it may be given other edition names such as the more solid-sounding "stone-man", "iron-man", and so on.
The term can also be referred to as business jargon.
Origins
The succession of names comes from the requirements document for the programming language AdaAda (programming language)
Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages...
. In the High Order Language Working Group (HOLWG) the process to define Ada generated requirements documents sporting different names, representing the various stages of development of the Ada language, as described in 1993 by Col Wm Whitaker. in an article ACM SIGPLAN notices. They were:
- STRAWMAN issued in April 1975,
- WOODENMAN issued in August 1975,
- TINMAN issued in January 1976,
- IRONMAN issued in January 1977, revised IRONMAN issued in July 1977,
- SANDMAN not published but circulated in January 1978,
- STEELMAN issued in June 1978,
- PEBBLEMAN issued in July 1978,
- PEBBLEMAN Revised and issued in January 1979,
- STONEMAN issued in February 1980,
Other references include the following document THE ADA ENVIRONMENT, LTC Rodney A. Edge, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, DC 20307, Thomas A. Marciniak, M.D., National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20205