Re: Virtual Department - Take II

[Penny Staples <pstaples -at- AIRWIRE -dot- COM>]

Sorry Kevin, I think we were all *hoping* it was a joke. And that it doesn't
signal the beginning of a trend :-(

Given your situation, I would talk to some key developers to try to define
some requirements (my guess is that they're not happy with this situation
either). What do they need, and what can they realistically be expected to
use? Good luck with it.

Something similar happened several years ago at a place I used to work --
the company laid off anyone who had Tech Writing skills. I think that
someone at the top decided that Tech Writers were redundant and too
expensive.  They got rid of the Business Analysts and Testers at the same
time. The programmers were told to handle the whole development process,
including gathering requirements, business analysis, programming, testing
and documentation. For documentation, anything they couldn't handle was to
be done by secretaries or other clerical staff. The company is doing very
well, but from what I hear, there's mostly no documentation. Guess
management has decided that's OK, given that the software is for an internal
audience.

Penny Staples
pstaples -at- airwire -dot- com

Kevin Feeman wrote:


>Hey all.  Yesterday, I wrote about creating a virtual department.  This
>was NO JOKE!  I was really asked to do this sort of thing, because Intel
>is having cost reductions and I was placed in the middle of it.  The
>timing, April Fools Day, I did not really consider it.  In fact, I
>didn't even realize it was April Fools Day.  I would not make a joke
>about technical communication on this list.  Especially since there is
>already so much banter and non technical related postings as it is.  I
>would not want to take up band width.  In fact, I am a little offended
>that people thought that this situation was a joke.  No joke folks.  I
>am really faced with this situation.  Now, enough raving, does anyone
>one have suggestions on how best to handle this situation?
>