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Subject:RE: Document Wildly Until Someone Blows A Whistle From:"Sharon Burton" <sharon -at- anthrobytes -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 5 Jan 2005 07:26:31 -0800
Somehow, I knew this would come back to DFDs. I just knew it. ;-)
Scoping and chunking the content is part of estimating. Estimating means
understanding how the project is structured and what parts need to go in the
project - not SHOULD go in the project, but NEED to go in the project. And a
senior writer can do this using hand puppets and a system of lapel pins, for
all I care, as long as it works for them.
Tony, you are obviously a visual learner so DFDs appeal to you. I'm not a
visual learner, so the idea of creating diagrams just frustrates me.
Pictures of systems don't have much meaning for me. Words, the relationships
of the words on the page have much greater meaning for me. When I was an
anthropology grad student, the drawings of sites the archaeologists came up
with always left me frustrated. They didn't convey the texture of the site.
Something was missing for me.
Please remember that while DFDs are the Holy Grail for you, for us
non-visual learners, they are just frustrating to think about. There are
many ways to reach the same goal of accurately estimating your projects. But
we all need to be estimating our projects.
sharon
Sharon Burton
CEO, Anthrobytes Consulting
951-369-8590
www.anthrobytes.com
President of IESTC
If you can't estimate what you're doing and how long
it will take, how will you know what is possible in
the time available and how will you know when
you're done?
Tony Markos responds:
Great question Sharon! I think it was JoAnne Hackos
who once wrote that the way most Tech Writers proceed
is that they document wildly until someone "blows a
whistle".
I agree that often - maybe most often - that is the
way the world REALLY works. Basically, after the
whistle is blown, the TWs just find a reason to
radically cut things off and "call it a wrap".
Sharon Burton:
Every mid to senior level writer should be able to
closely estimate their project. It is one of the
criteria by which, in my company, you get classed
as a senior writer. That and ability to manage your
projects. And you can't manage it until you can
estimate it.
Tony Markos:
For good estimates, you just don't estimate. The first
thing, and the real boggie, is properly scoping out
the project and then "chunking" the system into
right-size pieces (i.e. relatively small and equal
size pieces). This is real interesting - when was the
last time you heard a good discussion on how to
properly scope out and "chunk" a system - other than
my rants on this listserv about Data Flow Diagramming.
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