RE: TW and QA

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

The article described a stunning gap in QA. A failure of the gravity
switches would (and did) lead to the total loss of the $264 million capsule.
Was there no way to test their functioning when installed according to the
drawings?

When I posted this, I had no idea whether there was a writer or assembly
instructions. It did occur to me that (a) if there wasn't a writer, there
should have been, and (b) if there was a writer, part of the writer's job
was to ask, "How do I know that it works the way that I described it? What
happens if it doesn't?"

I have not yet been formally trained in QA, but as a technical writer, part
of my job is to ask those questions.

Dan Goldstein

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gene Kim-Eng 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 6:05 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Re: TW and QA
> 
> I don't *think* that was the original point of reposting the
> article.  I suspect that the idea was that there was not a
> writer or assembly instructions and that such an error 
> would not have happened if there had been.  I also don't
> think that's a slam-dunk, based on past experience (in
> my case, as the test engineer who used to be responsible
> for verifying that something built to CB's manufacturing
> instructions actually worked).  OTOH, the fact that there
> wasn't a role for a TW in such undertakings doesn't
> necessarily mean that there shouldn't have been...
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> > Lots more good stuff snipped, but you answer my 
> > question about whether there was a role for a 
> > Technical Writer on such massive one-off projects. 
> > The answer appears to be "no". 
> > There appears to have BEEN no technical writer to 
> > blame for having dared to be non-technical and 
> > thereby having screwed up the whole multi-hundred-million 
> > dollar project.

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

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 lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.