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.
Subject:Re: Technical writing in the development process From:John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:Me Too <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Mon, 26 Jun 2006 04:57:45 -0700 (PDT)
> > I was wondering if I could get some responses about
> > how you as a technical writer are involved in the software
> > development process.
>
> About as much as a day laborer is involved in
> designing the house.
Just so everyone knows it can be better...
I'm at a gig now where the documentation department is involved
pretty much from the beginning...in fact, we participate in writing
the Functional Specs and we also create a sepate document called a
Documentation Requirements Specification and it goes out to all the
project players.
Each PM is also required to invite someone from documentation to each
project meeting, usualy held once a week. OTOH, we are obligated to
make sure someone is available to attend...sometimes not so easy at
the end of the deadline.
I have to say that of the 12 gigs I've been at in almost 20 years,
documentation is taken more seriously here than anywhere I've been
before.
> Your experiences are probably par for the course, and
> I seriously doubt that you can do anything about them
> unless you are working for managers who actually care
> a fig about documentation. In other words, your chance
Correct...the documentation manager here is on the same hierarchy
level as the QA manager and the Dev manager with as much
yes/no/go/no-go input as anyone else.
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
WebWorks ePublisher Pro for Word features support for every major Help
format plus PDF, HTML and more. Flexible, precise, and efficient content
delivery. Try it today!. http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
