RE: Interview what Interview? (WAS: Capturing info during meeting s with SMEs)

["Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM>]

Lord, I think I'm on another planet than most of the software tech writers
posting on this thread.... I haven't "interviewed" a SME in three years!
Couple of reasons come to mind, and I'm wondering if any other long-term,
FTE, or merely aged writers out there have gotten to a similar stage:

1) I've been working on these 7 products for nearly four years,  not much
new they're going to tell me about functionality.
2) I'm an equal on the project team, go to status meetings, QA the builds
along with the testers, and help write the specs.
3) I just like finding this stuff out on my own. 
4) Doc (well actually on-line help) reviews are on the project plans, and
everyone works to the plan.

Granted, when I first arrived, status and spec development meetings weren't
in the job description, apparently the previous staffers were more of the
"font-fondling" variety (of course I don't know that for sure, they were all
gone before I arrived.) The teams did seem kind of startled when I asked to
be involved in meetings and put on distribution lists.

I'll ask questions in these meetings, and provide my expertise if
appropriate. I take lots of notes, and observe carefully the kinds of
questions QA asks of Development, and Development asks of Product
Management.  It seems to work for me.  Any kind of technical errors get
caught in the review stages. Well 99.9% of them anyway.  We did have two
bugs written up by clients, which I just thought was seriously cool... They
read enough of the doc to know something was wrong... How often does that
happen?

Does everyone do SME interviews but me?  Am I a "faux" technical writer. I
kinda thought I was approaching the same pedestal as Geoff and John :)

Regards

Connie P. Giordano
Senior Technical Writer
Advisor Technology Services
A Fidelity Investments Company
704-330-2069 (w)
704-330-2350 (f)
704-957-8450 (c)
connie -dot- giordano -at- fmr -dot- com
 
"Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'cause I'm afraid
that we've been cheated here on Earth" - Clint Black "Galaxy Song"




-----Original Message-----
From: Kirsten Zerbinis [mailto:salmonzerbinis -at- rogers -dot- com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 2:16 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Capturing info during meetings with SMEs



Just to establish context, I work in software user docs, and so far 
I've never had the benefit of much being written down before I got 
there (specs, early docs, etc.), so I get most of my information from 
interviews.

I'm devoted to my laptop, for several reasons.

1) I'm a very fast touch-typist, and I've been practising this 
note-taking technique since first-year university, so I can do it 
quickly, and generally without breaking eye-contact with the person I'm 
talking to.
2) I never lose my notes.
3) I have this awesome laptop, a 1GHz G4 (Powerbook) that I always get 
asked about, so it provides a bit of an icebreaker topic.  I find this 
to be a helpful way to begin to talk to techie SMEs, and to begin to 
establish my credibility as someone who knows, likes, and values 
technology in general. My education is all Liberal Arts, so for me, 
this is an important thing to establish.

I'd love to hear from the rest of you about information capture 
techniques.  Particularly, I'm interested in whether you end up going 
back to SMEs repeatedly, to get refinements of the information, or 
whether you're able to retain most of it in the first go.  Is this a 
function of experience or prior background in the field?

Kirsten Zerbinis
London, Ontario




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