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>The English in the document is quite good. As
>a usable User Guide, however, the document is
>atrocious.
One of the weekly trade pubs that I particularly like is something
called "eWEEK, the Enterprise Newsweekly". It's small, I can fit it in
my jacket pocket, and it's weekly.
Anyway, they recently interviewed Vivel Paul, the Vice-Chairman of Wipro
Ltd (an Indian outsourcing company with 1 billion dollars/26,000
employees). In it, they ask him a question based on how they do what
they do:
"If you look at the way we do software development, you find a very
structured, process way of software development. It is rigorous and
repeatable. It is much more of a factory environment."
If you look at this quote, and relate it to Chuck's comment, they
relate.
In technical writing, the type of documentation that we equate to
quality documentation isn't a done in a factory environment. It's
one-off. That's why Chuck's observation of "a section for each, a
chapter for each, a page per heading, basically, that it is done
according to a formula. In this way, they can split a 200 page document
among 200 writers and each writer creates a self-contained and discreet
deliverable.
At my last gig (before here), we had an Indian-based company
onsite...about 30 people. Maybe slightly less. We gave them a section of
cubicles, about 4 isles of 8 cubes each. They set it up so there was a
supv at the end of each isle and he was responsible for divvying the
work. It was done in small chunks that could be done in a single shift.
At the end of the shift, the little chunk was handed in and in the
morning, a new piece was given out.
There was no inspiration, no "big idea", no vision, no insight.
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