Re: Where does Documentation belong?

[k k <turnleftatnowhere -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

> 
> Where documentation and/or training is in the Org
> chart is relatively 
> meaningless and highly dependant on company
> politics.
> 

I have to disagree with the idea that where docs are
in the chart is meaningless. It has a decided impact
on what the docs people do and how they are made to
work. Your output has to please your boss for you to
keep your job, and when your boss is a salesman you
have to do things differently.

I've seen places where docs were in the
sales/marketing division, usually on the logic that
since buyers used the technical documentation, the
technical docs constituted a product of the company.
The sales/marketing people argued that since the tech
docs affected how the users thought of the company,
they (sales/mktg) should be in charge of it.

Invariably, in such situations, the technical
documentation became technical-flavored documentation.
When TWs are responsible to sales people, their output
is forced toward "soft" writing. They are made to
spend more time writing to project the right "image"
and "feeling" and spend less time researching and
presenting facts. When you put the docs group under
bean counters, the documents stop being what the user
what needs to know in order to use the product and
become about what the bean counters want the user to
feel about the company. 

Technical documentation should remain on the technical
side of the company. That's the only way it can remain
technical documentation.



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