Re: How to Convince Development Dept to Provide External and Internal Design Specs?

["David Castro" <thejavaguy -at- gmail -dot- com>]

On 3/23/06, Steve Phillips <sm -dot- phillips -at- verizon -dot- net> wrote:
> Does anyone have any suggestions on how to convince an immature and resource-constrained development department of the importance of providing the Tech Pubs dept. with internal/external design specifications for new product development?

Here's what worked for me at my last place (resources -- scientists:
2, developers: 4, managers: 1, tech writers: 1). Write one or two
individual-feature specifications, yourself.

I created a template and started writing specifications without being
asked to. I interfaced with the scientists, figured out what they
wanted, wrote it up, went back to the scientists, got their approval
on the spec, then delivered it to the developers. They had been
interfacing directly with the scientists, who would give a general
idea of what they wanted, then when they saw the output, would say
"no, that's not quite what we had in mind."

When I got laid off, I asked one of the developers how much time my
specs saved him in re-work, and he estimated 50%. That's quite a high
payoff!

If you need hard-and-fast figures, the book Code Complete has loads of
them. Lots of research has been done in this area, and every hour
spent in planning pays more than one hour in saved time.

-David Castro
 thejavaguy -at- gmail -dot- com
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