Re: ISO9000 Standards for Technical Documetation

[Scott Havens <SHavens -at- ELCOTEL -dot- COM>]

Danny Dresler wrote:

> Hi Phil,
>
> You wrote 'but our developers who have worked for ISO9000-compliant
> software
> companies insist that ISO standards for software documentation do
> exist.'
>
> Not for ISO 9000 they don't! You *can* misinterpret ISO 9000 this way
> but
> compliance means that you will have appropriate design, servicing, and
> administration documentation under document control. What you put into
> it isn't
> subject to standards unless your quality system says it is.
>
>
Scott Havens adds:

        I pretty much agree with what Danny says.  Having worked for two
companies that claim ISO-9000 compliance, I've had a couple of different
experiences.  ISO-9000 is really more about procedures and
accountability than about specific standards for the individual tasks
that are being performed.  At the first "ISO" company, our Tech Comm
Dept procedures were an official part of the company's ISO-9000 Manual.
Even so, these procedures did not specify anything of a stylistic
nature, but simply laid out the proper steps for requesting a
documentation deliverable and for completing that deliverable once its
creation was approved.  Tech Writers were expected to know the
procedures, and were subject to interviews by the ISO auditors when they
came (although none of us was ever interviewed while I was there).

        In my current position the ISO-9000 standards seem to be thought
of as a "manufacturing thing," rather than applying across the board to
all departments.  Thus, the more "administrative" functions, such as
technical writing are not addressed in the ISO-9000 Manual, and we
haven't been asked to participate in audits, etc.

        I really don't think there are any ISO-9000 style guides or
anything of that sort.  What your programmers may be thinking of are any
admonitions the ISO standards might contain regarding proper internal
documentation of software code.  (However, I'm not familiar enough with
the actual standards to know what, if anything, they say on that
subject.)

        I hope this is useful.  (It's too early in the morning to think
about anything so complicated...)

        SRH


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=