RE: Necessity of Doc Plans for a Single Chapter or Section

["Mike Starr" <writstar -at- wi -dot- net>]

<rant>

I'm with Andrew. In 16 years as a technical writer, the closest I've come
to creating a doc plan is making a list of the projects that needed to be
worked on and assigning them some sort of priority order. My feeling is
that the amount of time and effort required to produce a credible doc plan
would consume probably 80% of the amount of time and effort it would take
to just do the work. In the projects I've worked on, I have no idea what
the document should contain until I've actually worked on the project long
enough to understand the product sufficiently. By that time, I'm already
most of the way done with creating the documentation and at that point, a
doc plan is meaningless.

Doc plans are only valuable if you're going to manage the documentation
process down to the teensiest task and that level of management is only
appropriate for shops where there are enough layers of bureaucracy to
ensure that very little real work gets done but that are knee-deep in CYA
memos. These are the same sorts of shops where the doc plans call for the
SMEs to spoon-feed the writers every teeny little bit of information that
goes into the document and if they don't then there's somebody to point the
finger at when the deliverables don't get done on time. Of course, you have
to have at least two or three meetings a day to make sure that everyone
gets kept busy generating reams and reams of meaningless drivel that do
absolutely nothing to accomplish any real work.

I may not be able to create a lovely doc plan with color-coordinated
PowerPoint presentation and Excel spreadsheets, but I can bang out a great
document in less time than most. Y'all go on to the meetings and do the
meta-work; I'll just sit at my desk and do the real work and I'll be done
about the time the doc plan gets published.

</rant>

---
Mike Starr                            WriteStarr Information Services
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-----------------------Original Message-----------------------
>Subject: RE: Necessity of Doc Plans for a Single Chapter or Section
>From: SteveFJong -at- aol -dot- com
>Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 10:49:20 EST
>X-Message-Number: 3
>
>"tekWriter tekWriter" <sfsutekwriter -at- hotmail -dot- com> want to know if a doc
plan 
>is needed when only one chapter of a document will be revised. I think a
doc 
>plan is needed even when only one *word* is changed. The doc plan is your 
>contract, and not producing one is tantamount to doing work under the
table. 
>Where will you be when the one chapter turns into five new chapters, and
the 
>project manager wants to know why you're so slow?
>
>But there are doc plans and there are doc plans. I have written 50-page
doc 
>plans, for a 15,000-page doc set. I have also written a short e-mail
message 
>as a "doc plan" for a small, fast-turnaround project. Hopefully you have
the 
>same flexibility, but I think every project should have a plan of record, 
>even a one-chapter change.


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