Re: Necessity of Doc Plans for a Single Chapter or Section

[Lois Patterson <lois -at- dowco -dot- com>]

Having a documentation plan establishes to anyone else who may need or want
to know that you have an idea what you are doing. Plus, they get a rough
idea of what will finally be produced. Having a good-sized output is
certainly important, but managers may rightly prefer a mediocre output that
they can plan for, rather than a great output that they don't know for sure
is coming.

In addition, if for some reason you have to leave the job or project, the
documentation plan will be there for the next writer to pick up.

The documentation plan can be published on a company intranet site along
with the project requirements documents. (Of course, the requirements
document for the documentation may be a different document altogether.) Then
the project managers and architects will have all needed documents at once.

Having said that, documentation plans can vary greatly in detail and
complexity. But if you approach it with the principle "if I were gone
tomorrow, what would the next writer need to know ...," it should work out.

Lois Patterson


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