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Re: Who is responsible? (was living doc article)

Subject: Re: Who is responsible? (was living doc article)
From: Jan Henning <henning -at- r-l -dot- de>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 08:41:25 +0200

Thus, what got me about the article, is not the latter half where the author
describes some mechanisms to help improve and catch mistakes. Its the notion
that mistakes are not (always) the authors fault.

The statement was that errors in the documentation are not always the others fault, and a specific example was given. Eric has already posed the question, and I will repeat it here:

How do you think that it can be the writer's fault if documentation differs from the final product when the documentation had to be finished (not by the writer's choice) before the product and the product changes after the documentation is done?

Now if you were to argue that every error in documentation were the responsibility of a manager, than I might agree with you, because every time an error occurs, a manager made one or more of the following mistakes:
- Hire an incompentent writer.
- Give a compentent writer not enough time and/or ressources to do the job properly.
- Made faulty decisions - despite the input of a competent writer - on the scope of the documentation or other parameters.
- ...

So, to quote Eric:

Now unless an Uber-Writer wants to explain to us all how we are supposed to take
100% responsibility and attain 100% accuracy and become 100% clairvoyant in a
dynamic environment where the writer is not in control of the development or
release schedule or process, I would kindly suggest they take their grudges and
prejudices elsewhere.

Regards
Jan Henning

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References:
Who is responsible? (was living doc article): From: Andrew Plato

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