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Re: Lone Writer Rant "You don't need to know that..."
Subject:Re: Lone Writer Rant "You don't need to know that..." From:Matt Craver <MCraver -at- OPENSOLUTIONS -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 1 Oct 1998 10:47:37 -0400
John David Hickey [jdavid -at- FARABI -dot- COM] wrote:
> Every time I've got a question on a procedure that challenges the
> developers, it's the same old tune:
>
> "The user would never do that, so it won't ever be a problem"
> "Why do you want to know that?"
> "You don't need to know that information."
> "Nobody ever reads the manuals anyways, so what's the difference?"
> "Who cares?"
>
> So I have to keep hammering away with questions until I get the
answers I
> need, but it annoys the developers and it discourages me. It's like
what I'm
> doing is a necessary evil, but not that important.
John:
There have already been some good posts on how to handle this, but I
just have a thought or two.
In your situation, I would get your customer support people to back
you up. The manager of CS here has sometimes been my best advocate and ally
- they do have to respond directly to the customers, after all. As such,
when something isn't documented, or documented to the customer's
satisfaction, that person _will_ hear about it.
From you company's web site, I get the impression that you have a
user base of large companies (small businesses generally don't have
AS/400's, but my impression could be incorrect). This can also work in your
favor: "Look, I need this information for <insert name of biggest client
here>." This generally gets me a "<Grumble, grumble, those people....>
Alright, here you go."
The caveat is that I have to make sure I approach "difficult"
developers in this manner only if I have looked for the information
elsewhere and can't find it. I also try to phrase my question in such a way
that shows I have looked at the developer's work and have only a few
specific questions. This sends the message that the least painful thing for
that developer to do is to answer my questions. (Flattery of the code
helps, too).
Good luck
-Matthew Craver,
Technical Documentation
Open Solutions Inc.
Mcraver -at- opensolutions -dot- com
