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Subject:Measuring Our Value From:Daniel Wise <dewise -at- IX -dot- NETCOM -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 17 Jul 1997 23:59:55 -0500
Colleagues,
I am cross-posting this because the topic has come up on both lists.
Wednesday the Birmingham, AL chapter of STC held its monthly meeting. The
speaker was a local consultant who provided us with a wonderful success
story that goes a long way toward giving us a way of measuring our value.
In her case, she was writing the documentation for a new software product
that will be used in the health-care industry, one that must be approved by
the US government's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before it can be
marketed. The documentation was written to both explain to the user how to
use the beast and to explain to the FDA how the beast works ("i"s dotted and
"t"s crossed). She told us the approval cycle was 23 days (compared to 1
year for two other products recently approved by the FDA). In their
approval letter, FDA officials cited the high quality, completeness, and
accuracy of the documentation as being a key factor in their speedy
decision.
Yeaaaaaa Team!
Dan Wise
dewise -at- ix -dot- netcom -dot- com
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