Product Task Analysis

Subject: Product Task Analysis
From: "Anna Gosling" <agosling -at- ts -dot- checkpoint -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:28:46 -0500


Dear Tech Writers:

My team has been "tasked" with a very specific analysis of our products.
What this means is that each writer will take a component from each product
and document EVERYTHING about it: how it works, how to install and configure
it, etc. Each writer must create a list of all possible things each
component can do, and then create end-user documents. These documents are
online "solutions" that are part of my company's public knowledgebase, which
means the documents must be short and concise. Writers don't have pages and
pages to explain components and document steps for installing, configuring,
etc. Writers CAN'T use HTML (because of the limitations of the editing tool
they're using), but they can add hyperlinks to related solutions or to our
Web site.

In short, how have you tackled such a monstrous task, especially for complex
software that requires a great deal of explanation? The other thing is the
writers aren't supposed to be recreating our user guides or training
manuals. So they're really looking for some direction about the best way to
do this project. They can't pull from existing documentation; they have to
create short, but detailed solutions; there's no way to use HTML; and they
have to go through each component carefully, ensuring they've detailed
everything about each component.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your feedback.

Anna Gosling
Education Services
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
2505 N. Highway 360, Suite 800
Grand Prairie, TX 75050
www.checkpoint.com


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