RE: How many product releases do you support in a given year?

["Alan Salo (Ariens Plant 1)" <asalo -at- ariens -dot- com>]

The small team that I manage consisting of two technical writers and two
illustrators released an average of just under 600 titles per year over
the past five years. This includes domestic and international owner's
manuals, parts catalogs, kit instruction sheets, safety decals and field
service bulletins. Needless to say we are all about production. As my
main mission is management, my writing time is at maximum 10% on a good
week so the team carries the load. I occasionally have to utilize a
freelance writer when production dates make it necessary.

Cheers,
Alan

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+asalo=ariens -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+asalo=ariens -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Julie Stickler
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 1:56 PM
To: Technical Writing
Subject: How many product releases do you support in a given year?

So, I'm writing up notes for my annual evaluation and it occurs to me
that in the past year I've supported an almost ridiculous number of
product releases.

Back when I was doing waterfall software development, I might have a
product release once a quarter, with only one really being a major
feature release and the rest being smaller releases that were generally
patches/bug fixes.

Now that I'm doing Agile (and supporting multiple products) it seems
like every time I turn around I have another release deadline.

So my question for you folks today is, how many product releases a year
are you expected to provide documentation for?



--
Julie Stickler
http://heratech.wordpress.com/
Blogging about Agile and technical writing
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