Re: Centralized document management and decentralized document creation

["Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>]

John,

You're looking at the wrong end of the horse. (I realize you know this and are merely describing the situation that exists at your company, but the whole company is looking at the wrong end of the horse.) I've seen companies like this and the only answer is there is no solution unless they are willing to listen to reason and start looking at the right end of the horse.

Here's what is supposed to happen:

You have a project to complete (anything from a small ECO to a major new initiative--it doesn't matter). You generate a plan for that project. The plan includes all of the steps needed and lists all of the documents that must be produced. Each of those documents is of a type for which the company already has a centrally produced template.

The plan also shows dependencies between steps and dependencies to other projects (perhaps parent projects that are in process or already complete).

The individuals responsible for each of the documents are identified in the plan, and those individuals are responsible for ensuring that their documents are complete and up to date (with whatever formal or informal review process is called for in the plan).

The document templates might (optionally) have sections that explicitly require listing related documents that need to be reviewed when the present document changes, that list departments that need to be notified of changes, etc.

As you can see, this is exactly the opposite of what you have in place, so the cultural change required would be massive. However, if there is enough pain, and if you really are in touch with the right people, the change is manageable.

All of this can be managed quite effectively with the appropriate system. (Contact me off-list. That's the kind of software we make.)

Dick

John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
>

>
>In my situation, each department handles documentation differently.
>Some, like my department, have a writer to write documentation.
>Unfortunately, this is a minority.  In most departments, "someone" in
>the department writes anywhere from one to several documents. We may
>be talking about over 100 different document authors at one time or
>another.
>
>Everyone then submits their documentation to a centralized department
>who does some style/template enforcement, some monitoring to make
>sure that documentation that was dues for a project is submitted.
>Their main responsibility to roll out this documentation to the
>field. As soon as the document is delivered to the field, they wipe
>their job, respective of that document, is done.
>
>The problem arises when a change is made in one document, which is
>referenced by other documentation, referenced by other documentation.

[rest snipped for benefit of listbot]

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