TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
> ** As an aside: few people understood =why= they were doing things. Few
> if any understood what another part of the product they were
> developing did. A few did not understand even what their parts of the
> product did: "I don't know =how= the customer plans to use this.
> All I know is that the screen is supposed to look like the user
> interface document's specification. The cursor has to move from field
> to field in this order when the user presses <TAB>. These fields'
Hear now, friends, the parable of the Perilously-unrestrained son....
> *** After being trained in process and quality management, one manager
> related her being able to apply it in her very own home. One of
> her kids refused to buckle his seatbelt. So this manager and her
> her husband, who had also had this training (for the Evil Empire
> seems to employ families), set themselves to applying the process
> and quality management tools they had learned. The began to
> analyze the situation. They asked their little "customer" what he
> perceived the problem to be. And so on. It seems to me that any
> parent with half a brain, especially two parents with advanced
> degrees, should have intuitively known to ask the kid why he didn't
> want to fasten his seatbelt, and found out that it wasn't that
> he didn't =want= to but that he =couldn't= because it was too
> tight and he wasn't strong enough to lengthen it himself.
> Likewise, it seems that a lot of quality management is bone-
> headedly obvious. It's just that there are some people below
> the level of boneheads.
If we were to take our Freshman English Instructor's advice and
outline Chet's message; then outline the first dialogue in Tom Peters' _A
Passion for Excellence_ and compared and contrasted them; we would find
simailar topics covered.... I quote in part
"What else is so tough [about applying the principles found _In
Search of Excellence_]?"
Listening to customers.
"You are right about that one; it *is* hard."
Glad to see you agree.
"Darn right. They just don't understand what we're trying to tell them."
Yeah, that's why listening is so hard.
Naturally, the title of this first chapter in Peters' book is _A Blinding
Flash of the Obvious_
Its the stuff you take for granted that tends to cause the most serious
wounds when it bites you on the back-pockets.
Thanks for your time....
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Dan BRINEGAR aka BENU |
| Research Droid Glendale Community College |
| 6545 -at- ef -dot- gc -dot- maricopa -dot- edu Electronic Forum, Glendale, AZ |
| *CARSEF Manager, Phoenix STC |
| (Central Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair) |
| Coming in March to a High School Near You! |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
