TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Included here after reading some of the other responses.
In addition to having the camcorder and voice recorder in the room with you,
do the following:
Try to have one of the CAD people there with you. Have them take 'close-up'
digital pictures with a digital camera (make sure it has a USB connection).
Have them follow the 'track' that the camcorder follows during your discussion.
After your meeting these images can be put on your hard drive in a designated
folder. They will probably be JPG files.
Review each of the images and give them unique "Person-readable" names.
Print them in black and white. (Color can come later)
Review your camcorder information and make notes on the printed copy.
Include the engineeers comments as well.
Put them in a 3-ring binder (in sequence), and make an index.
After you have this set of pictures you can describe the different views,
using your notes on each one. (Those you "don't use" immediately, may be useful
to theCAD department for their wireframes).
If you have the opportunity to "dissemble the unit" have someone follow along
with the camcorder/digital camera. (You can label these later as steps, in
the reassembly, of the unit.)
Again, take the images, put them on your hard drive in a separate folder calle
d disassembly (or some such), following the same process as you did in
documenting the meetings that you had with the engineers (giving each a unique
name), print them in black and white), nake notes on the pages. Make sure that
you put a sequence number in each, because you will need to reassemble them in
theproper sequence.
Once you have done this, you have the following:
1) Outside views of the unit
2) Information for disassembly (as it happens)
3) Information for assembly. (reverse the sequence of 2) and you have the
sequence for assembly/reassembly.)
You should also have the routing of all of the cables, the positioning of the
electronics, and associated hardware.
Plus you have all the notes that you gathered while you were doing the work.
During this process you will be able to give the engineers feedback on
information that you think might be needed by the 'field service' technicians when
they do their work.
Except for the pictures I have done this bout 4 times over the years.
One suggestion I made about silk-screening data transfer rates on the
communications card was implemented by the engineer overnight. When we installed the
equipment in the field we did not even have to look at the book to see what
the setting was supposed to be.
I hope this helps a little bit
Sincerely,
Harry M. Bacheler, Jr.
Consultant
Jack of all trades, Master of some, and not so good at others
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT - EDIT AND REVIEW, REDEFINED
Accelerate the document lifecycle with full online discussions and unique feedback-management capabilities. Unlimited, efficient reviews for Word
and FrameMaker authors. Live, online demo: http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to lisa -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
