Re: Technical writing in the development process? (take II)

[Beth Agnew <beth -dot- agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca>]

Another key function of the doc plan is the signoff. State in your doc 
plan that you will interview SMEs for X hours, work with the product for 
user testing, review QA's database of bugs, or list any task involving 
other people, or items they must provide (such as a product prototype or 
build). Then when the managers responsible for those resources sign off 
on the doc plan as approving it, they are committing to providing you 
with those resources. I make it explicit in the doc plan by including a 
paragraph to that effect. I hold a review meeting for the doc plan, and 
make it crystal clear that once they approve my plan, I will stick to it 
and deliver as promised -- as long as I get the resources that I have 
asked for, and that have been agreed to by their approving the plan.

This does two valuable things: It puts management on the alert that 
those resources will have to be allocated to your project, and it shows 
that you cannot be held responsible for their failure to do so. 
Obviously, in execution you would do everything you could to complete 
with or without the requested resources, but having formalized it all in 
a doc plan can really save you when all that dreck starts to roll downhill.
--Beth

Geoff Hart wrote: