Re: How to fend off a tech writer

[CHRISTINE ANAMEIER <CANAMEIE -at- email -dot- usps -dot- gov>]

> 3. The Obstacle: "Put all your questions in writing..."

I can understand that one, I think. If you drop in on developers or call them,
you're breaking their train of thought, and it'll take them awhile to get back
into what they were doing, even if all they do is stop and say "Not now. Later."

Joel Spolsky has some interesting comments about how knowledge workers
(including writers and programmers) tend to be most productive when they're "in
the zone," in a state of absolute concentration. By his account, it takes about
15 minutes to get into the zone if you've been knocked out of it, and that's if
you're not so worn out that you spend the rest of the day spinning your wheels.

>From http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html:
"Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks
for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers -- ESPECIALLY interruptions by
coworkers -- all knock you out of the zone. If you take a 1 minute interruption
by a coworker asking you a question, and this knocks out your concentration
enough that it takes you half an hour to get productive again, your overall
productivity is in serious trouble. . . .
With programmers, it's especially hard. Productivity depends on being able to
juggle a lot of little details in short term memory all at once. Any kind of
interruption can cause these details to come crashing down. When you resume
work, you can't remember any of the details (like local variable names you were
using, or where you were up to in implementing that search algorithm) and you
have to keep looking these things up, which slows you down a lot until you get
back up to speed."

Sometimes I'll drop by somebody's cube to ask questions if that's how they
prefer to work (or if their day is clearly an endless string of such
interruptions, as in the case of my SMEs who do user support). But if I'm
dealing with people who need long stretches of uninterrupted quiet time, I'll
email them or else save up my questions and arrange a meeting.

This is not to say that I condone the "don't bother the developers" mentality.
But if what they really mean is "deliver your questions in such a way that you
don't destroy the developers' productivity," that seems reasonable.

Christine
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free copy of ARTS PDF Tools when you register for the PDF
Conference by April 30. Leading-Edge Practices for Enterprise
& Government, June 3-5, Bethesda,MD. www.PDFConference.com

Buy RoboHelp Office in May and you'll save $100 with our mail-in rebate.
Or switch from Doc-to-Help or ForeHelp to RoboHelp Office for only $499.
Get the help authoring tool PC magazine recently awarded a perfect score!
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.