RE: Help on Coordination between Engineers and Technical Witers

["Bill Swallow" <wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com>]

::: At my company we're trying to improve the coordination 
::: process between 
::: developers and technical writers. The problem is that sometimes 
::: technical writers don't get notified of software changes or 
::: new features 
::: that should be present in the user documentation. And vise 
::: versa, it may 
::: happen that developers don't know if something is changed in the 
::: documentation and they don't check it for correctness. 
::: We're seeking for 
::: a way to define a formal process to solve this issue and 
::: place it in our 
::: quality management system (it's based on ISO 9001).

You want a product called Good Communication. It's relatively cheap, which
is good, but it's very hard to implement. Usability is sketchy as well, so
rely on lots of training and following up on all using it regularly. It may
sound like a pain to use, but over time, people will get used to it and it
will become a part of their daily lives.

::: My company offers products, made of several projects. The 
::: input for our 
::: activity is software requirement specifications (I think 
::: they should be 
::: similar to product requirement specifications). But 
::: sometimes, they are 
::: completely out-of-date and turn out to be almost useless. A kind of 
::: solution is to check for changes all projects once a week, but this 
::: becomes a nightmare when there are more than 30 projects 
::: within a product.

Only 30?

OK, so you're looking for an easy way to get notified of changes, without
actively seeking them? I don't think that will happen. Even the best systems
only give you a hint of what's being changed. You need a workflow and an
outline for improving your communication channels, conduct a meeting among
all engineering managers, get approval and sign-off on this outline, then
all work as a team to beef it up, and then streamline it and communicate it
out to all employees. And then follow up on how people are doing with it.

::: How do you proceed in such situations? Do you have special 
::: meetings with 
::: the development team, discussing what the documentation 
::: should contain. 
::: Do you think that technical writers should attend the meetings 
::: discussing the design of a project? Here, these meetings are too 
::: "technical".

Bullcrap. No meeting should be too technical for a "technical" writer. If it
is, (IMO) you have staffing issues. No, we don't have special meetings with
the development team, but we do attend the development meetings to catch up
and check in, every meeting. We also approach developers one on one to
answer specific questions that are inappropriate to ask in a meeting of
many.

I'm sorry if I seem snippy, but I got home from a 12 hour day at work to put
my kids to bed and now am back on at work from home. So I apologize for the
'tude, but at this point, if it quacks, I grab my rifle and take aim with
the assumption that I *will* be having duck for dinner.

Bill Swallow
wswallow "at" nycap "dot" rr "dot" com