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Sounds like a job for JoAnn Hackos - Managing your Documentation Projects!
Wiley and Sons.
In all seriousness, get your hands on this book. It will explain about
getting management to buy in, creating doc and project plans, getting
everyone to buy in to the plans, outlines and getting the developers to
understand that the information depends on them, etc. Attending meetings
early and often, offer to be keeper of the notes for the meeting - a task no
one likes but makes you a central person in the information disbursement
process. A freeze GUI date that means something, a central list of feature
changes/additions, etc. Involving tech support in the process, and many
other things.
BTW - if your manager or their manager aren't upset about this state of
affairs, you really have a battle on your hands. It is a matter of training
and you must have management behind you all the way or it will never work.
Trust me on this, I have been here too many times.
sharon
Sharon Burton
Anthrobytes Consulting
Home of RoboNEWS(tm), the unofficial RoboHELP newsletter
www.anthrobytes.com
Check out www.WinHelp.net!
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric J. Ray <ejray -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU <TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU>
Date: Tuesday, 11 August, 1998 1:02 PM
Subject: FWD: Setting Doc Requirements for Developers
>Name withheld upon request. Please reply on list.
>
>*************************************************
>
>
>I will make this short.
>
>My six-year old company has only had an internal doc department for a
little
>over a year. Before, all work was handled by an outside agency. Because of
>this, a lot of the developers are not used to having a full-time writer
>assigned to their product.
[snip]>
>My boss wants to sit down later this week to discuss this. As their are
>another twelve writers, I am a guinea pig for showing how valuable the
>writer can be to creating a quality product and doc.
