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Re: Enchanted Development Organizations Was: Re: Expectations too high?
Subject:Re: Enchanted Development Organizations Was: Re: Expectations too high? From:TechComm Dood <techcommdood -at- gmail -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 22 Sep 2004 01:49:59 -0400
> If you are a Tech Writer who attends developer
> meetings, do you feel it is worth your time?
Yes, most definitely.
> As a
> Technical Writer, the primary thing that I need is a
> comprehensive integrated understanding of WHAT the
> software does for the end-user.
Not how or why? How do you build context and reasoning for the what info?
> However, it has always been my experience that such is
> never talked about at developer meetings.
Nope. Because the what is black and white, and should be easily
outlined in the specs by a short sentence per feature. All other info
can be taken from the source code or product build.
> Instead,
> the conversation is inevitably a disjointed discussion
> on HOW the system works.
Which is exceptionally important to all involved in the project on the
engineering side, IMO. That includes tech writers. A misdirection or
misunderstanding of the how on the dev side can have devistating
results on the what side, and can come as a surprise to those who
focus on what and not why.
> Even though, most often, the
> requirements (i.e., the WHATs) are supposed to be the
> main topic.
Really? What does the agenda say? The whats are a very small part of
the product.
> After attending developer meetings, I always have to
> try to abstract an integrated WHAT out of this
> disjointed HOW. This is not a productive excercise.
Why are you doing this? You should be able to determine the what
easily based on a broad understanding of how and why. The meetings do
slog through complexities, but from that comes clarity, if not in the
form of what then in the form of why or how.
> I have dealt with such in numerous organizations. I
> have, in the main, worked with degreed developers
> from good schools, so I kind of find it hard to
> believe that there are some "special" companies who,
> somehow, have conquered this issue. But I may be
> wrong. Maybe there is a far away land where everyone
> is nice, open, honest, and logical.
Perception is everything. And to coin a phrase, you get out of it what
you put into it. If you have blinders on and expect only WHAT, you'll
be disappointed.
It all boils down to role definition, and I argue that a tech writer's
role certainly isn't limited to WHAT. If it was, we're all drastically
overpaid.
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