Re: Agile software development and effect on techwriting

["Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

John Cornellier wrote:
> So rather than taking a finished product, starting at the beginning, &
working through to the end, the idea is to start with the Big Picture, then
fill in the details as they are established.

Sounds great. I've tried it myself, and probably recommended it a few times.
But it just doesn't work, at least not for me, YMMV.

The Big Picture is the sum of the little pieces. So how do you know the Big
Picture until you start adding up lots of little pieces?

I recognize I am not qualified to write high-level topics about a product
until I know all the little details, or at least most of them. But once I
know the facts, I become better able to write overviews than most of the
"Big Picture" people.

Tech docs are unfortunately full of Overviews and Introductions and Roadmap
to the Overview topics that were written by tech writers who were under
pressure to start the docs before any facts were known, so they just
parroted what their boss said about how the application would work - "you
can fill in the details later..." . I've written enough of these myself that
I now reject the concept on sight.

Mike O.