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Re: Tech Writing in Kanban

Subject: Re: Tech Writing in Kanban
From: "Peter Neilson" <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:29:09 -0500

On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:00:47 -0500, Porrello, Leonard <lporrello -at- illumina -dot- com> wrote:

I just read the Wikipedia page on Kanban and am now an expert (wink, wink). How would you/do you use Kanban for doc tasks?

From my jaundiced understanding of the American version of Just-In-Time and Kanban, the application in tech writing is to avoid writing the manual until someone is ready to read it. Instead of pushing the product into the area where it might be requested, Kanban tells us to let it be pulled by demand. I've worked for some outfits that wanted that... "We're shipping this product next month and need a manual for it. We're looking for someone who knows MS Word and is also familiar with our unreleased product."

The idea of hiding the new product from the writing crew until too late is not new, and predates Kanban. "What do you mean, it will take you six weeks to change the manual? All we did is add two more items to the user interface. That's six lines of text. Cancel the printing job? Heck, if it's printing right now, you can use lprm. Don't you know your Unix shell commands? I don't see the problem."

I need a pill for my jaundiced brain.
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