Re: anyone else in the same boat?

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

Andrew Plato wrote:
 
> I disagree. This is a waste of time. Conventions and standards only have
> meaning to a team of tech writers. Other people (like engineers) could care
> less about standards. A lone writer should do this in his/her head.

Not only that, but, even if you are hired to implement process, you
can really only lay the foundations for standards until you are well
into the actual work. 

For example, I've designed more templates than I can remember, and
count myself as reasonably experienced and skilled in this field.
However, no matter how much planning I do beforehand, I have yet to
do a template that didn't require a few tweaks as I went along.

Maybe this fact shows a character flaw. But, naturally, I prefer to
believe that it's simply realistic. How could I possibly know
exactly what's needed until I'm well into the material? Based on my
experience and my own writing quirks, I can anticipate many of my
needs, but never all of them. Of course, if I absolutely had to, I
could stick to my original design work. However, then I would be
twisting the work to fit the design instead of the other way about.
I'd also be causing myself extra trouble, when one of the main
points of effective design is save trouble. 

In other words, preliminary planning is useful, but don't let it
become an end in itself. The chances are that you'll only end up
strait-jacketing yourself or else doing work that you'll have to
re-do later. Neither is very efficient.

A final note: I've worked for a lot of startups, and I've also been
brought in to help organize documentation at several existing
companies. In fact, I've made organizing the documentation one of my
specialties. Yet,no matter how much the organization of the process
has been stressed in interviews, I've never had a client who wanted
to emphasize it at the cost of getting the documents actually
written.

-- 
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

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