RE: Style guides - doc standards vs processes

["Steve Hudson" <steve -at- wright -dot- com -dot- au>]

Andrew - to take the complete obverse argument from you - do you HONESTLY
believe that employing ad hoc processes as the status quo is the better road
to take? I've bit my tongue on NUMEROUS occasions, as I believe you are a
great counterpoint to the "Lets spend all out time just documenting our
job", which is something I personally am perhaps too fond of.

HOWEVER, this attitude can be taken too far. At some point - given little /
no down-time, do you not agree that time needs to be allocated to
standardising and documenting the required business functions performed by
the technical publications department? I feel that the results (known
processes, with known results over pre-determined periods) far outway the
time spent.

ISO9001 was the end-result of a large number of large companies seeking to
improve their processes through consistant application of solid principles.
Obviously you have a much better system and all the standards bodies of the
world know jack-all compared to you.

So, how do you guarentee quality? Oh - Mr Plato works on it. Well the rest
of us need some sort of auditable proof.

Steve Hudson , HDK List MVP
Wright Technologies Pty Ltd (Aus)





-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Plato

...

The problem with documenting nuances is that those nuances change. Then
you end up documenting how to document the nuances. Before too long,
you're entire group is arguing over nuances in a book. Fighting over trees
while their forest burns to the ground.

And don't get me started on ISO9001. Why this turd has been piled upon the
world is a mystery to all sane, decent folk.


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