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Subject:FWD: Place of documentation team From:"Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 24 Jun 1997 05:57:37 -0600
Forward anonymously on request. Please respond _on_ the list.
Thanks, Eric
I'm team leader of a group of 3 writers in the Engineering department of a
software house. The department is planned to grow from about 25 people now
to about 50 by the end of the year, and I've just seen the proposed new
department structure. It has the 5 programming team leaders, who are
responsible for a total of 38 people, reporting directly to the Engineering
manager, as they do now. However the documentation team leader reporting to
the new position of QA team leader. Total reports to the manager are 8, and
he doesn't want any more.
The rationale I've been given for combining documentation and QA is that
(a) we know who we want for QA team leader, and he's got documentation
experience so he's an additional champion for the documentation cause; (b)
documentation and testing are each too small to warrant separate direct
reports to the boss. My reaction is that (a) the documentation is a
component of the product which deserves representation; (b) whoever heads a
combined group responsible for both product documentation and testing has a
conflict of interest, unless they aren't serious about the tested quality
of the documentation; (c) we need at least one additional writer anyway,
which brings the documentation team up to the same size as two of the
development groups.
What does the list think? Am I right to be unhappy about this? I've come up
with one possible different structure, which adds an extra reporting layer
to combine 3 of the programming teams. Can you see other alternatives?
Assuming this structure does come into effect, what's my best strategy for
dealing with it?
Thanks for your help.
**************************************************
Eric J. Ray ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com
TECHWR-L Listowner http://www.raycomm.com/
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