Re: text production process

["CB Casper" <knowone -at- surfy -dot- net>]

John Garside wrote:
> Our department has been discussing promulgating a 
> text production process for some months.
Mike added:
> Just wondering -- Why do the 'customers' care what your
> production process is? Can every department who needs your
> services specify a different production process?

It is invaluable to have agreements between the various
groups using your services. The efficiency of the writing
department is based upon what is received.

If one team provides text, another Word, another pencil
sketches, etc. the conversion process to Frame burdens
the writing department, not the senders, but it affects 
the entire company. If everyone used one tool, it would
allow the writers to focus on the content, the IT group
would only have to support one tool, etc.

Sitting down and talking to the ones involved in preparing
the materials and determining what they need, when they
need it, etc. can make a big difference. 

I recently worked with someone with a huge bloated RTF file 
he got from an internal website. He was using it to gather 
information on a product from the lab. It took minutes 
to open on a fast machine. The intent was to provide a 
simple form for them to fill out and return. The writer 
would take the info and update the documentation from it. 
It would have been an unacceptably large doc to email as
it was written.

A great idea to simplify communication and focus on content,
but he needed help with the execution. I showed him how
to simplify it by creating tables in Word from the text 
copied from the RTF to exclude the bloated html.
It resulted in a fast and simple document that wouldn't 
bog down any email servers, nor frustrate anyone with
the incredibly slow file opening time.

Evaluating what information is needed, who needs it,
and what it is dependent on what can lead to an easier,
faster, and cheaper way of producing documentation. 

By doing this when developing a new tube fabrication
process, I managed to design a process that eliminated
my own job. By having the design team provide just a 
few pieces of extra data to the tube design drawing, 
everything the fabrication team needed was available. 
There was no need for any customized documentation for 
an individual tube as we had done in the past. I moved
on to another interesting assignment.

For multi-department processes, focus on limiting
material to exactly what they need, and who needs
it, in what sequence is key.

CB - process evaluation is not for wimps,
well maybe it is, but actually getting changes
made from the analysis definitely isn't

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