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> My experience with IM is that there are definitely some ideas
> there worth implementing. What concerns me about it is the
> tendency of people I have met who have taken the training to
> sound a bit like Scientologists when they talk about it...
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
Also, it usually needs to be adapted to one's specific needs (although
the IM Scientologists would flame me for saying something like that...
:)
I attended a course some time ago and after having implemented IM in
some of our documentation I realized that some ingredients in IM simply
don't work in a real-life industrial documentation situation - and even
annoys readers.
For example, according to the IM course material all figure blocks in a
structure map need to be introduced with something similar to "This
figure shows...". That is all and well when figures are not
selfexplanatory but is extremely annoying for the reader when it is
obvious what the figure displays.
Also, procedural blocks need to be introduced with something like "This
producedure explains...", which creates the same annoyance if the
procedure is selfexplanatory. Not to mention the same kind of
introductory sentence before a callout table below a simple figure. It's
unnecessary to state the obvious!
I enjoyed attending the IM course and felt that it gave me new methods
to structure my documentation, but - as all religions - one should not
accept it without criticism. Some things definitely need to be tweaked
in order to make it work better.
Best regards,
Mats Broberg
Technical Documentation Manager
www.flirthermography.com
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