Re: Documentation Phase in Software-Development Life Cycle
Those administering the development process have been requested to
incorporate a documentation phase into the release cycle so that
technical writers can work with a stable, tested product.
Unfortunately, this request has been turned down, and the reason
provided for this refusal is that the company follows a three-month
release cycle and hence has inadequate time for a dedicated
documentation phase.
Economically, the key is "first to market." The product must arrive
ahead of anything that the competition has that even remotely looks
like the intended product. Hence the release of vaporware. One
company I worked for announced the release of a product that was
so far ahead of the state of the art that it could not exist. The
press and even TV went wild, and the company's stock price went
sky-high. Various people made their secret money, as family members
sold stock. The ruse was discovered, and the price fell back to
normal. I was supposed to have been writing the documentation for
the thing, but there were, of course, no specs, no code, no nothing
from which to write except for a puff piece from Corporate
(dis-)Communications. I failed to understand that they wanted a
fake book, spent my writing time searching for the missing
information, and thus failed to produce anything.
It's common for documentation to be allocated zero time, or less,
for writing. If it's fancy printed books, with a ten-week lead
time, the scheduled time for writing and the press time often overlap.
I've been asked to make changes to material already approved for
press, and have always been able to counter with the penalty cost,
which usually includes a few weeks for rescheduling the press run.
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References:
Documentation Phase in Software-Development Life Cycle: From: Vlad Dracul
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