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Subject:What is and what will be From:John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L (E-mail)" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 1 Aug 2003 14:37:48 -0400
Like most situations involving large document sets, from the time something
about a system is defined to when it should appear in a document can be a
considerable period of time.
From time to time, I get copies of System Requirements that detail all
changes to a system because a particular feature is being added, a change is
being made to our infrastructure, or we must comply with a regulatory issue.
Now it may take 45 days to get this implemented into PROD, but it may take
only 2 weeks to get it documented based on the System Requirement
documentation.
Since this is internal documentation and not life threatening, my approach
has been to document as spec'd and upon release of the feature in PROD, go
back to the documentation and cleanup any deviations or loose ends...and
usually, the actual is pretty close to the proposed.
In addition, I include a note letting the reader know that the section is
preliminary and subject to change by the time of final deployment.
The advantage is that I have a wider time window to get it in, and the
disadvantage is that the reader sees what will be rather than what is.
How do you handle it?
John Posada, Senior Technical Writer
Barnes&Noble.com
"If you're afraid to be second-guessed, you better not make any decisions."
--Hal Sutton, America's 2004 Ryder Cup Captain
