Request for research help

[Beth Friedman <bjf -at- WAVEFRONT -dot- COM>]

This is somewhat sideways to the topic of technical writing, but I'd
appreciate any help people can give.

I've been documenting a major in-house software development project,
but the documentation is currently stalled because they're trying to
decide what to do about authorization steps.  Right now, just about
every script has a second-party authorization -- the second person
looks at the work done by the first person, and authorizes the
completion of the script (on computer).

This takes an enormous amount of time, both in additional coding to
build in the authorizations, and in actually performing the work.  The
company is trying to decide whether to remove some of the
authorization steps.

As a result, I've been given the task of finding out if there are any
standards or best practices regarding what sort of procedures should
have second-party authorization, and for what procedures the existing
audit trail (and generated reports) is sufficient.

I haven't had a lot of luck with keyword searches (using various
combinations of pension, authorize, event, action, benefit, and best
practice) on the Web or at the library.  There's a QA listserv, but it
appears to be very low traffic.  I could find accounting guidelines
about what level of money ought to have oversight, but that's not all
that close to what I need.

Any ideas?  I'm really frustrated on this one, because I'm generally
more successful as a researcher.

Thanks again for any help anyone can provide.

*********************************************************************
Beth Friedman                                       bjf -at- wavefront -dot- com
"A civil war is such an awful bother.
We fought at Tewksbury and still ran out of mustard.
I wonder where my brother Richard is."            -- John M. Ford


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