RE: Enchanted Development Organizations

["Goldstein, Dan" <DGoldstein -at- DeusTech -dot- com>]

Hi Tony,

Sorry it hasn't worked out for you. At my last gig, I attended weekly
developer meetings (and was eventually asked to run the meetings). At my
current job, I attend meetings with developers, engineers, and scientists.
Since I am none of the above, I don't always understand all of the how and
why. However, I am expected to follow the proceedings sufficiently to tie in
issues of QA/QC, regulatory compliance, obsolete or superseded specs,
end-user interfaces, etc. I raise issues that would otherwise be forgotten,
I ask for decisions when questions are left unresolved, I listen as hard as
I can, and I take lots of notes.

I always thought that this was part of the tech writer's job -- isn't it? I
don't have time to dredge the archives just now, but I suspect that *many*
TECHWR-Lers have had similar experiences.

Thanks,

Dan Goldstein

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tony Markos 
> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 1:48 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Enchanted Development Organizations Was: Re: Expectations too
> high?
> 
> Question out of curiosity:
> If you are a Tech Writer who attends developer meetings, do 
> you feel it is worth your time?  As a Technical Writer, the 
> primary thing that I need is a comprehensive integrated 
> understanding of WHAT the software does for the end-user.
> However, it has always been my experience that such is never 
> talked about at developer meetings.  Instead, the 
> conversation is inevitably a disjointed discussion on HOW the 
> system works.  Even though, most often, the requirements 
> (i.e., the WHATs) are supposed to be the main topic.
> After attending developer meetings, I always have to try to 
> abstract an integrated WHAT out of this disjointed HOW. This 
> is not a productive exercise.
> I have dealt with such in numerous organizations. I have, in 
> the main, worked  with degreed developers from good schools, 
> so I kind of find it hard to believe that there are some 
> "special" companies who, somehow, have conquered this issue.  
> But I may be wrong.  Maybe there is a far away land where 
> everyone is nice, open, honest, and logical.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl

WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l 

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.