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Missed the initial post and Andrew makes a good point. I'll give you
real-life, specific example. It helps you find all the assumptions you made
and thought everyone understood plus catching all the changes to the
procedure that have been made without bothering to let you know.
We have an installation manual that covers our system's hardware and
software pieces. The people who create systems for customers use the
documentation. We routinely ask those who install the stuff to review the
procedures. QA even validated it at one point and we've been adding new
material as it comes along.
QA hired some contract testers, gave them all the pieces and a set of
documentation and the charter to create a system. Fortunately, they even
took the installation and maintenance class during this process. They found
a bunch of things - including steps out of order - that needed to be fixed.
And we thought the document was ready to be printed. Three weeks later the
tech finished updating to include their changes, verify questions and then
we started preparing the files for the printer.
Mike Hiatt
Manager, Tech Pubs
VocalData, Inc.
Dallas, TX (yep, that one)
mhiatt -at- vocaldata -dot- com
<Big snips>
-----Original Message-----
From: David -dot- Spreadbury -at- marconi -dot- com
Subject: Re: Validating Technical Procedures
Reply from Andrew Plato:
Try checking out programming / project management resources. I don't know
of any offhand, but I know I read a "how to manage software projects" book
about 5 years ago that said all documented instructions should be
validated by QA.
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