RE: Ever seen a service level agreement for a tech pubs department?

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

John Posada replied to Milan:
 
> > Not just for a project but an ongoing thing -- kind of what 
> like an IT
> > dept. would have in a corporation.
> >
> > Ever written one and/or worked under one? Any good stories to share?
> 
> Milan...can I assume this is an ITIL thing?
> 
> It's simple. What has your marketing department promised to customers
> about documentation that is included with a product.
> 
> It might include elements such:
> 
> All applications will include, at minimum, an installation manual and
> a release note, upon delivery of the application.
> All defects found in documentation will be addressed and delivered
> within 30 days of discovery
> All documentation will be available from an online source.
> etc.
> 
> The customer simply wants to know what gurantees you are making from
> the perspective of documentaion so they know what they are going to
> get and what is owed to them.

Keep in mind to consult with other affected departments. If an
out-facing agreement starts trumping company projects, Product Line
Management will become unhappy.

If you've agreed to a 30-day cycle of documentation fixes, then you've
agreed to a 30-day cycle on Configuration Management activity, because
you are probably affecting Bills of Materials (unless "addressing" doc
errors just means sending a correcting/clarifying e-mail and a copy of
the defect report to confirm it went into your internal error-tracking
system "for future release").

If you are fixing the product docs every thirty days, you might also be
committing the QA people to a 30 day cycle for every product that you
ship.  Not only do they need to review what you wrote/corrected, but
they probably have to test/verify that it's correct.

It all depends on your industry. Probably aircraft- and medicine-related
industries have some strict standards in that regard, and therefore the
companies budget for the implied additional overhead.  In the general
computer and consumer-electronics industries, not so much. In
telecomms...        Depends on your industry.

 - Kevin
The information contained in this electronic mail transmission 
may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected 
from disclosure. If you have received this communication in 
error, please notify us immediately by replying to this 
message and deleting it from your computer without copying 
or disclosing it.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing 
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor,  Microsoft Word or 
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. 
http://www.doctohelp.com

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info. 

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat