Re: Who Decides?

["GALVIN, KATHLEEN" <KATHGA -at- SAFECO -dot- COM>]

I'm going to do the unforgiveable and quote myself. Following is my off-line
answer to Linda Castellani, who originally posed the question.

        The audience decides. Period. The audience analysis and the analysis
of the tasks they need to accomplish are incontravertible evidence of what
the documentation should be. Documentation based on anything else is bumpf,
and until and unless we educate the decision makers in our respective
organizations about this fact we are going to continue to be accused of
turning out documentation that is junk. And the company will continue to pay
the price in unhappy customers and tech support overload.

        As you can see, I am passionate about this and it communicates to my
listeners. I am not above giving this little speech to a roomful of
marketing and administrative types and I've seen it have an effect. Go forth
and advocate for decent and useful documentation!


Kathy Galvin





        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Tom Johnson [SMTP:johnsont -at- STARCUTTER -dot- COM]
        Sent:   Monday, April 19, 1999 9:16 AM
        Subject:        Re: Who Decides?

        Well, it is marketing who should be deciding what the customers
want. Who
        is doing the audience analysis? If marketing is deciding which
market to
        cater to, I think maybe they would have some valuable input. If I
were
        making wagons for little kids, I might decide that white may be a
good
        color because it won't get hot when left out in the sun. But
marketing
        knows that kid just has to have a red wagon because it looks
"faster." As
        engineers or writers, we could design all sorts of nifty features as
part
        of our product that will function flawlessly. But, if we don't
provide what
        the customer will want or use, it is a lesson in futility. There
probably
        isn't much point in getting into a turf war. Marketing should know
what the
        customer wants, from that point it should probably be a mutual
decision.

        Tom Johnson
        Elk Rapids, Michigan - On the freshwater coast

        johnsont -at- starcutter -dot- com   work
        thomasj -at- freeway -dot- net     personal


        Linda wrote:
        In your company, who decides what the documentation requirements
are?

        We are implementing the Software Product Life Cycle concept
(attempting to
        impose order on chaos), and I just got out of a meeting in which I
was
        informed that Marketing decides what documentation is required,
whether a
        user manual, or online help, or both or something else entirely, and
this
        seems ridiculous to me.

        I can see Marketing making *recommendations*, but I think that the
decision
        about what documents are created should be made by the people who
have the
        best idea what vehicle will best serve the product and the audience
in
        question.

        What do you think?


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