TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
You've gotten some good advice from others.
Some things I've learned from be part of the process
here:
1. If your company is implementing an off-the-shelf intranet
tool, it will have some quirks and requirements that
influence how the process works.
2. As well as interviewing SMEs, this sort of thing needs input
from management. Around here, every new bug is reviewed in
a committee where it gets accepted and assigned to the ap-
prorpriate fixer (who is normally a member of the committee).
3. Requests for software enhancements will need to go through
some form of business review, eventually. (Somebody will have to
do a cost/benefit analysis before the work is authorized.)
4. Some bug reports will also be rejected as being caused by factors
outside the scope of what your developers can do. (Problems on
a particular computer, improper installation, conflicts with a
gazillion un-authorized software utilities, etc.)
None of this is terribly complicated. You've documented worse,
I'm sure.
Have fun,
Jim Shaeffer (jims -at- spsi -dot- com)
> By next Tuesday, I have to come up with some ideas for
> documenting a work process. (This is about how other
> departments at our company make requests for software
> enhancements, or report bugs, or other ad hoc requests. The
> process now is that they interrupt QA people and/or
> programmers and the squeakiest wheel gets the grease.) Our
> company is implementing an intranet tool that they will use
> to make the requests, with a back-end that we will use to see
> what's in the pipeline and manage it.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Acrobat & FrameMaker Seminars: PDF Best Practices, FrameMaker-to-Acrobat
Advanced Techniques, FM Template Design, Single Sourcing with FrameMaker
in Brussels (Oct), and in Montreal & Dallas (Dec): http://www.microtype.com/1
Check out the new release of RoboDemo, our easy-to-use tutorial software.
Plus, buy RoboHelp Office in August and save $100 with our mail-in rebate.
Get details and download free trial versions at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
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.