Re: Different name for "Release Notice" document?

[Kevin McLauchlan <kmclauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com>]

On Thursday 17 October 2002 13:19, John Posada wrote:
> Are you talking about the "book" that is signed off
> by the customer, acknowledging that the deliverable
> is done and I'm ready to receive the invoice?

No, it's a similar, but lesser thing for internal 
purposes. Or, to put it another way, it's like saying 
that PLM (Product Line Management) has conspired 
with Production to satisfy some of the endless wants 
and needs of Customers. PLM makes a Requirements
Specification and hands it to Engineering (which 
includes Development and also Product Verification).

The Requirements doc includes all the "must haves", 
the "really want to haves" and the "it would be nice 
to haves", listed in their dozens and hundreds as 
Requirements (R1, R2,...R97,...) and each tagged as 
a Priority i, Priority ii, or Priority iii, where all 
of the "i" requirements have the same rank, all of the 
"ii" items have the same rank, etc.

Engineering makes a Design Spec, which says:
a) which of the Requirements they are prepared 
    to tackle (and maybe even deliver) in the 
    alloted time 

b) how (at a high level) they will implement the 
   requirements that they've agreed to deliver.

Some negotiation ensues, and then PLM signs 
of on Engineering's "what we're gonna do" document.

Engineering developers make busy motions for 
some weeks or months (incidentally churning out 
some more docs of the "how we're doing it" or 
"how we've done it" flavor).
Sometime in the process, PV takes the Requirement 
and Design specs and works up a massive and 
fairly complete Test Cases Document, which is 
a statement of what they are going to be integrating 
and testing, in order to verify that the product 
a) works/isn't-fatally-broken
b) satisfies the agreed-upon requirements.

In the meantime, Configuration Manglement is 
collaborating with PLM in the creation of a full 
and complete set of Bills of Materials for the 
upcoming release.

So, hardware freeze and code-freeze are declared 
(with more or less crossing of fingers...) and PV 
(which has been doing trial dry runs and get-acquainted 
testing with the early pre-release builds) prepares 
to receive "the real thing". Development takes 
whatever they've cobbled together up to that point, 
and creates a formal build, called a Release Candidate.  
PV sets it up, from scratch, and tests the crap out of
it, religiously checking off tasks and items from the
test documents (which were built from the Test Cases). 
Toward the end, if it looks like we've got a winner, PV
also verifies the BoMs.

All this, plus some other stray bits of paper, is 
gathered into a formal document that the PV Manager 
currently calls her "Release Notice Document". She and 
other people (a Development rep, a PLM rep, and 
I believe, a Production rep) sign it. 

Once that doc is signed, the product is released for 
Production to begin filling orders.

So, it's only a 6-pound document. Sales Dept. keeps 
the customer requirements and contracts in another 
drawer.  

Anyway, one of *my* documents, that goes out the door 
with the Install Guide and other Customer docs, is 
"Release Notes". But since "Release Notes" is somehow 
easier to say than "Release Notice", many people in
the company end up saying (and writing) "Release 
Notes", when they meant to refer, not to my customer 
Release Notes, but to the PV manager's "Release Notice"
summary/accountability document.

This has lead to confusion and misunderstanding in 
the past.  I don't want to change the title of the 
customer-facing "Release Notes", because it is a 
rather standard and expected title... unless somebody 
else has a juicy title I can use instead... so I'm 
trying to find a replacement title for the "Release 
Notice", which is a title that just sorta popped up 
within the company a couple of years ago.

S'a'right?

/kevin


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All-new RoboHelp X3 is now shipping! Get single sourcing, print-quality
documentation, conditional text and much more, in the most monumental
release ever. Save $100! Order online at http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

Buy ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 6.0, the most powerful SINGLE SOURCE HELP
AUTHORING TOOL for MS Word. SAVE $100 on the full version and $50 on the
upgrade.  Offer ends 10/31/2002 (code: DTH102250).
http://www.componentone.com/d2hlist1002

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.