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> In your opinion, do documentation plans contribute to
> documentation quality?
I guess my answer doesn't fit neatly into one of the suggested responses, but
"Yes, sometimes" would be the closest choice. In my opinion, a documentation
plan can contribute to documentation quality if A) the information contained in
the plan is such that it helps achieve consistency across the documents produced
by a documentation team and B) if it doesn't require maintenance. The plan
should be just that - a plan, a "this is where I'm going with this document, who
it is designed for, and the basic information I will include." If you start
getting too detailed in the plan (including software requirements, etc) you've
created a monster that must be maintained along with the actual documentation or
it's swiftly out of date. This just doubles the work of the average tech
writer. I don't know about y'all, but I barely have time to keep the
documentation itself current with the ever-changing software - I don't have time
to update my doc plan to match the actual documentation every time the
developers change the software.
_________________________________
Kim McCarter
Information Design & Development
Harris Corporation, Network Support Division
(321) 724-3497
kmccarte -at- harris -dot- com
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