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After working for a few months at my new company I've noticed a general
lack of awareness on the part of engineers as to the role and importance of
documentation. This lack of awareness is expressed in sketchy SRS's that
lack information, last-minute rush jobs to complete documentation tasks,
failure to read existing documentation or devote the time necessary to
provide feedback and lack of awareness of how to provide feedback. In
light of this I decided it would be of benifit both to me and the company
to "educate" R&D and program managers by providing a forum for discussing
documentation issues.
I'm am organizing a documentation seminar that will be presented to R&D
and program managers. The main objective of the seminar is to raise
awareness of the importance of documentation in the development cycle and
the role of the documentation/technical writing department in this process.
I thought of approaching this seminar by focusing on 2-3 relvant topics
that would be of interest to R&D and would also help advance the cause of
documentation. The one's I have in mind are:
- The documentation cycle - the purpose of this is to raise awareness of
the importance of documentation in all stages of the product design.
- The Review Process - this concerns how review is provided to writers,
i.e how to provide feedback.
- Mapping the communication network - looking at how decision making and
product information is communicated through the various departments and
sub-departments. The goal of this is to situate the documentation
department within this decision-making tree and look at ways of
streamlining the communication process and storage of information.
Does anyone have ideas or suggestions about what to include in the seminar?
I'm really interested in getting as much feedback as possible on this topic
and any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Warren
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Warren Singer
Design and Documentation Department
VocalTec Communications Ltd.
Tel.: +972-9-9707765 (direct)
Fax: +972-9-9561867
Email: warren -at- vocaltec -dot- com
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