Re: Walk-throughs

["Hutchings, Christa" <cwhutchings -at- HOMEWIRELESS -dot- COM>]

Scott Miller wrote:

>Often, the only time engineering, marketing, and tech support are in
>the same room together is for a documentation walk through. Therefore,
>huge communication gaps are commonly revealed, such as which features
>are in the product, who the user is, the product name, and so forth. It
>is easy for a walk-through to get sidetracked.


Agreed. In my 15 years as a TW, I have *never* sat in a meeting where
engineering, marketing, and tech support discussed documentation issues.
At my current employer, I have tried to resolve this by forming an
internal Tech Pubs Focus Group. I am just starting up the tech pubs
effort at a new company and am anxious to forestall communication gap
problems such as those Scott mentioned. We just recently held our first
meeting and everyone I asked to be there actually showed up - VP
Customer Service, Director of Marketing, Director of Product Management,
Product Line Manager, Manager of Tech Support, and me. Everyone was very
interested in the tech pubs issue and we got a lot accomplished. Many
issues were hammered out and agreed upon (including identification of
deliverables), and everyone went away feeling that they were valued
contributors to our tech pubs effort. They were all quite happy to be
included in the discussions and agreed that we should continue to meet
on a regular basis, including for walk-throughs. I realize that things
may change as we grow, but at least we're starting out on the right
path!

Chris Welch-Hutchings
Sr. Technical Writer
Home Wireless Networks, Inc.
mailto:cwhutchings -at- homewireless -dot- com