Re: Documentation lag time - delivery question

["Suzette Leeming" <suzette -dot- leeming -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Well, we tend to do that. Our software is not "off the shelf" though, so we
can anticipate a couple of months after the release before a client
purchases the software and we have to install and configure it for them.
That gives me time to finish up the major updates, which is good because
there's only me.

In a perfect world (like my previous job) documentation efforts began at the
same time as develop efforts and the two would be ready to go to QA at
roughly the same time (give or take a week or two).

How acceptable it is to have a lag time I think depends on the situation. If
your software will be in stores with the documentation included, there
shouldn't be any lag time. If your documentation is delivered over the
internet (as more and more software vendors seem to be doing) a bit of a lag
time may be acceptable. The software needs to be published, packaged and
delivered to whatever retail outlets are appropriate. This gives the
documentation a bit of time to "catch" up.

Hmmm, maybe that's why software vendors are using online documentation more.

Suzette Leeming
Stouffville, Ontario



On 3/27/08, Sharp, Sandra <sandra -dot- sharp -at- cgi -dot- com> wrote:
>
> For previous releases, we've been able to provide documentation in time to
> be packaged with our software. However, due to the Tech Comm team's reduced
> capacity, we will not be able to do so for an upcoming release. I'm creating
> a plan that I think is reasonable for the amount of time the two of us will
> need to complete the documentation post software delivery. Wondering if it's
> not uncommon for shops to publish documentation after SW delivery? What is
> the expectation? How acceptable is it to have a lag time between software
> delivery and documentation delivery?
>
>
>
>
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