RE: most effective method for SME review?

["Cardimon, Craig" <ccardimon -at- M-S-G -dot- com>]

The approach that works best for me is:

* Whatever the SME feels like doing when they feel like doing it.*

Getting an audience with an SME is sort of like getting an audience with The Pope: If it actually happens, you feel as though the universe has smiled upon you.

~Craig


-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+ccardimon=m-s-g -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+ccardimon=m-s-g -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 8:12 PM
To: TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Subject: most effective method for SME review?

What has been your most effective method for reviewing docs with subject matter experts? I feel like I've tried everything and haven't really hit upon the best way of doing it.

Some approaches I've tried:

- comments forms on web pages
- direct edits of source files on Github
- in-person visits at my desk
- email
- JIRA tickets
- Word docs
- comments on PDFs
- Google docs
- Beegit
- focused meetings
- over-the-shoulder sessions

My reviewers say they like to highlight passages and put their annotations the margins, similar to Google Docs. The only problem with that approach is that (1) Google Docs is prohibited at my work for enterprise content review, and (2) importing content into Google Docs munges the formatting (there's no bulk import/export).

Nevertheless, Google Docs has been the best reviewing tool for my content (at least at a former company where we had Google Drive instead of MS Office). Beegit approximates Google Docs and allows you to use Markdown as the source, but there's no bulk import, so there's a lot of copying and pasting involved.


Tom

---------------------
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