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> I'd like your take on this from both ethical and practical perspectives.
> I've been given a friendly heads-up from management that we may need to
send
> out a large documentation set for a relatively new, as-yet-undocumented
> product without review. Also, if the documentation isn't finished for the
> customers who want
The solution to this type of problem is not to eliminate review but to
change the way that review is done. Monolithic review at the end of the
documentation cycle is a terrible imposition on the developers time and on
the product release schedule. It is also virtually guaranteed to produce
sub-optimal results because it is done under such harsh time pressures.
The solution is to adopt a policy of continuous incremental review. Write
the documentation as a collection of independent modules or topics and send
each topic for review as soon as it is written. That way developers see a
steady trickle of review work instead of a flood, and if management asks you
to wrap up whatever documentation you have today and ship it, the stuff you
ship will all be reviewed material.
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Mark Baker
Analecta Communications
www.analecta.com
+1 613 614 5881
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