Quality/validation

[geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]

 Here's number two in my series of anonymous postings. For
 anyone who missed my original note: I'm willing to post
 questions to the list from list members who feel that
 anonymity is as important as the answers (e.g., because
 their boss also reads the list).

 Please reply to the list, not to me directly.

 --Geoff  @8^{)}

 *****************************************************
 Greetings all-

 We are trying to get a formalized proofing/editing/QA-ing
 process off the ground for my group of technical and
 marketing writers. I have sort-of/kind-of been put in place
 as an editor, but my role to this point has not been very
 clearly defined.

 We just finished a major project, and it was pretty
 gruesome at the end. We had some developers who took the
 time to read our chapters (because they didn't have as many
 bugs to fix) and other developers who claimed they couldn't
 be bothered.  We had a QA department that has been vested
 with the godlike ability to proclaim anything as "fit" or
 "unfit" for release, but the department's reviews have been
 pretty meaningless for us: they spot typos and make
 word-choice suggestions. When we get the reviewed pages
 back, we are *supposed* to either (1) make the changes
 ("And anyone can do that," said my boss.  "After all, how
 hard can that be?") or (2) make copies of the proper
 authority and present that and the marked up page to the QA
 supervisor. (One of my writers actually had to copy the
 dictionary page that included the correct plural version of
 the word "status."  Eeek!)

 To get the right processes in place, I'd love to hear what
 other organizations do, especially if you are working in a
 development atmosphere that uses very frequent and rapid
 iterations. (A lot of our problem is that we can never
 catch up to the software ...!)

 Thanks for any advice you can offer ....

 ******************************************

 Note to those with automatic quoting functions in their
 mail: this message doesn't come from me, though you can
 certainly attribute the anonymous posting to me if you
 follow threads that way.

 --Geoff Hart    @8^{)}
 geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

 Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
 reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.