RE: What then is the SME/TW functional relationship?

Subject: RE: What then is the SME/TW functional relationship?
From: greg -dot- hamill -at- teradyne -dot- com
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 09:47:20 -0500


>Because I work in software, the stuff I write about is often only
>thinly-defined and partially implemented when I begin writing about it. I
>get a copy of the software or a profile on the system running the software
>while it's still in development. I try to do things with it. I crash the
>system, just like the engineers do<G>. I try to figure things out, based
on
>my experience with other systems and on my reading of whatever I can get
my
>eyeballs on that appears relevant. I talk to and listen to a lot of
>engineers, especially those in QA. We use whiteboards a lot. I constantly
>refine the docs, just as the engineers/implementors refine the software.

>Because the software is changing as I write about it, I must rely on SMEs
to
>verify that the docs I write accurately reflect the state of the product
at
>the time we ship Beta and final products. This doesn't mean that I don't
>know the product. Rather, it's a way of making sure that we catch, or at
>least minimize, any discrepancies between what I've written and what they
>understand about the product.

Just my $0.02,
Marguerite

In response to Marguerite's "thinly-defined" material, I coined a new word
last year (or at least I hadn't heard it before). We all writer "vaporDoc"
on uncompleted vaporware.

Our work here is identical. Your second note on changing software is a good
description of any evolving company. Time constraints imposed upon us and
on the SMEs are immediate, constantly changing, and pushed forward as often
as backward.

Greg


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