Re: Asking SMEs (was Seeking counsel - yet another)

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

Trying to figure it out at least once or twice is never a waste of
time.  You will get a much better response from an SME if you
ask "When I click on --- it does this, that doesn't seem to make 
sense to me, what am I not getting?" than "What does --- do?"
On my last foray into SW documentation, asking the question
the first way got me the right answer to complete the document
about 75% of the time, and the other 25% the SMEs told me 
that I had found a bug and asked me to file a bug report.  By
the time the product was released, about 20% of the bug reports
that were filed during the development cycle were mine.  

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bruce Byfield" <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
> I can suggest some general guidelines. For example, the effort becomes 
> unreasonable when:
> 
> - Trying to figure things by yourself causes more delay than the 
> schedule can handle
> - You don't know enough to work productively by yourself
> - Working by yourself is impractical or potentially too expensive (for 
> example, if you're working with multi-million dollar equipment that 
> requires specialized training to use, or which might be damaged during 
> your investigation



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