Quality of source material from Development

[Salan Sinclair <salansinclair -at- shaw -dot- ca>]

How much written information should software development department provide
for a technical writing department?
Option 1. Enough for tech writers to write the documentation, with few
questions.
Option 2. Enough for tech writers to get a complete scope but not the
details.
Option 3. Enough for tech writers to get started, or whatever information
developers can provide in the time allowed.

A friend of mine is a Doc Manager at a new company. She expected Option 1,
but the Dev Manager is delivering Option 3.

The documentation is for command-line interfaces for new networking
software. (The question could apply to any software, but sometimes GUI
software is easier to write by simply working with the product.)

The Doc Manager says the advantages of good source material are:
-improves accuracy, because the experts (developers) are providing the core
information
-improves efficiency for developers who provide information one time to
several audiences: Docs, QA, training, and marketing
-improves productivity for tech writers

The Dev Manager says the disadvantages of good source material:
-reduces developers' productivity because developers don't have the time to
provide source material
-is unnecessary because all the information is available to tech writers in
the code
-is unnecessary because tech writers can get the material through other
means.

I've never seen anything but Option 3, but my friend has worked only in
environments using Option 1.

What has been your experience? Can you make better arguments for the
options?
Should tech writers (or a TW Manager) have a say over the option chosen, or
is that for Development to decide?
Are there other options? Hire more tech writers? Hire programmer/writers?
Hire a tech writer for the Development department?

Thanks,
Salan



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