does quality matter? should it?

["Fiona Krycek" <fiona -dot- krycek -at- gmail -dot- com>]

hi there,

I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on the following:

The doc group I work in is part of our Engineering department. About a year
ago, Engineering got a new chief who declared that our documentation was too
low-quality. At the time, the doc group consisted of a documentation
manager, two senior writers, a midlevel writer (me), and a junior writer.

Our Engineering chief's strategy for fixing the situation was to lay off one
of the senior writers (the rationale was "we need an engineer more"), fire
the other senior writer, force out the documentation manager, and pressure
the junior writer into quitting. All this left only the midlevel writer
(me). After about two months, one of the senior writers was replaced. After
nine more months, a third writer -- an entry-level person -- was hired.

So, now we are now a group of three, and we have been reorged so that we
report to one of the software managers. At the same time, the demands on the
writing group are even greater than they used to be because of new product
offerings and because the company is now localizing everything. We writers
are stretched very thin, so much so that we occasionally ask engineers
to work on documentation (and to their credit, they have done it). I feel
like even if I put in a lot of extra hours, my work is never going to be as
good as I want it to be because the demands are simply too great. For a
while, I dealt with this by working 60- to 80-hour weeks, then I reverted to
more normal hours and just sort of resigned myself to the fact that I'm not
going to be producing the best work of my life. My co-workers' feeling is
that this is all OK, since documentation is only a "frill" for most software
companies, and we shouldn't be emotionally invested in what we're doing
anyway. Both my co-workers put in 40-hour weeks and don't seem too concerned
about the fact that, overall, our doc quality is going down, not up.

I have been trying to adopt this point of a view, but even if I agreed that
documentation is only a frill, this seems to be contrary to what our
Engineering chief goes around saying. After all, poor quality was the reason
our last manager was pushed out of the company (ostensibly).

So, my question is, do other people think that documentation is only a
frill? If you were (or are) working at a company that doesn't take
documentation very seriously, should this/does this bother you? If it
doesn't bother you, would you be bothered by the contradictory messages
coming out of senior management (contradictory because senior management
says documentation is important, but does not support this through hiring or
planning)? Can you suggest any strategies for managing this situation?

thanks in advance,
Fiona
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or 
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007 
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more.
http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

Now shipping: Help & Manual 4 with RoboHelp(r) import! New editor,
full Unicode support. Create help files, web-based help and PDF in up
to 106 languages with Help & Manual: http://www.helpandmanual.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.