RE: Help on Procedure Writing

["Steve Hudson" <steve -at- wright -dot- com -dot- au>]

A procedure MAY contain work instructions, or it may not. The section
labelled procedure quite clearly states numbered steps for sequential
procedures which most are.

Lets look at one I prepared earlier... its from my doc proc man

Developing Documentation
========================

Scope
The controlled production of documentation for use with products or inside
the company.

Considerations
Potential Inputs: Requirements, analysis, program code, architecture, users
feedback, older versions, similar programs, work practices, best-of-breed
practices and external or third party standards and practices.
Registered Designs will be listed in this manual.
The Documentation Team will be responsible for providing solutions when new
document designs are required.

Prerequisites
An identified need for a document, and said document has been reviewed as
incomplete, inaccurate or otherwise unacceptable.The Product Manager will
advise the Documentation Team when a new product or version is being
developed. Team Leaders will advise the Documentation Team when a new
process, procedure or reference is required to support their production
methodologies. Audits and reviews will generate gap analyses and other
requirements to change or produce documentation.

Procedure
1.	Decide on a Design. Wherever possible, existing Designs will be used.
Where no such suitable Design exists, prepare a Design consisting of the
skeleton of the document, showing a proposed structure. It will be
permissible for all staff to submit draft designs.
2.	For new Designs, liaise with any of the following staff to determine the
final output format requirements: Product Manager (for product
documentation), Team Leaders (for documentation specifically for their
department), Marketing division (documents to be released externally). The
decision will include page size, stock and presentation.
3.	Prepare a Prototype - a Design with a completed Scope and example or
explanatory texts as appropriate, and have this Prototype signed off by the
Requestor. Prototype failures will go back to the Design Stage (step 1).
4.	The Documentation Team will develop a Word 2000 Document to the specified
scope and any supporting graphics ? including, but not limited to, Plates,
Illustrations, Charts and Screenshots.
5.	The Document will now be ready for Acceptance Testing. This will be
described in the Testing Chapter on page 9.

Records
Documentation Change Request Form
Design Acceptance Review
Documentation Acceptance Review
Document Delivery Form
Bug Reports



Now the procedure most definitely does NOT say HOW to do the stuff, just
WHAT has to be done by WHO. If I wanted to be the sort of tech writer that
Master Plato rightfully despises and oft speaks against I would write
mindlessly brain-numbing instructions on how to do those things.

Unfortunately, the standard user in cryo-suspension in Geneva is a one
dumbed down dude and thus our User Guides oft need mindlessly brain-numbing
instructions on how to do things.

Hopefully you can see that the procedure is not telling How. Thus it has no
instructions. It has procedural steps. It can, but really if such
information is required it should be isolated into a work instruction and
cross-referenced from the procedure, eg:

4.	The Documentation Team will develop a Word 2000 Document to the specified
scope and any supporting graphics ? including, but not limited to, Plates,
Illustrations, Charts and Screenshots. Instructions for doing this are found
** HERE **.


Steve Hudson , HDK List MVP
Wright Technologies Pty Ltd (Aus)   EyeSpring - the future of graphics has
been created.





-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Shaeffer [mailto:jims -at- spsi -dot- com]


So, Steve
1. Does your "proc structure" contain any Instructions?
2. What is a numbered procedure if not an Instrutction?


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