Re: Level 1, Level 2, Level 9 billion

[John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Having worked at contracts that were CMM X, I have a
couple of observations. I'm not passing judgement on
whether CMM wass good or not. Infact, I terminated my
contract at a CMM 5 company becuase while I could see
the benefit from the company's standpoint, from my
standpoint, being somewhat of a loose cannon, I wanted
more flexibility.

However...with CMM...the overall benefit to the
company was that CMM is not directed at just a
department. The technical publications department of a
company cannot be CMM while the rest of the company is
not.  Therefore, when you, as a writer, are dealing
with software developers, they also must develop their
methodologies and you, as the writer, have access to
those methodologies. This gives you an advantage in
that you see their plans, their directives, their
milestones, their schedules, and their development
status from the beginning. This makes planning your
work easier and should their part of the project fall
apart and possibly jepordize the plan, there is a
known published process for reporting that jepordy and
having additional resources devoted to the project.

Does this make everything "OK"? No, but it does help
at times.

=====
John Posada, Merck Research Laboratories
Sr Technical Writer, WinHelp and html
(work) john_posada -at- merck -dot- com - 732-594-0873
(pers) jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com - 732-291-7811
"The art of creating software that is usable by individuals is a communication skill. It is not a programming skill."
                    --Bill Atkinson, creator of MacPaint and HyperCard
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