"Linux is now not supported"

[Ned Bedinger]

I have to assume that I, playing myself as the techwriter in this 
virtual staged scenario, understand how integral Linux support is to 
this product.  The question seems designed to elicit my firefighting 
response, but my 15 years of documentation work has taught me to temper 
any impulse to rush major tasks--too much can go wrong with the tools, 
too much goes unnoticed that needs notice, and I would be assuming 
inappropriate responsibility by accepting more work than I can 
reasonably complete in these circumstances. These considerations guide 
my opinion of how to proceed.  I will clarify just how this affects my 
response.

So, at 4 PM on a critical Friday, with the final build scheduled for 
tomorrow, I learn that a major change has gone down and my documentation 
products are now wrong.  My response in the first 15 minutes would be to 
draw my own conclusion (if my role is allowed to provide advice), and be 
ready to offer it, but my primary response would be to make every effort 
to contact my manager, pass along the news of the sudden change, and 
follow whatever instruction I get in reply.
 
The question doesn't really allow me any wiggle room, else I would 
assert my expectation that the documentation was frozen, by team 
agreement, once the final draft was signed off. If this freeze agreement 
was in its proper place in the question, then I would be with Kevin in 
adding the change to the release notes, or writing up a concise 
statement or summary to include in the distribution.  As with all frozen 
docs I own, I would also plan to add the new support to the 
already-begun list of changes to be included in documentation for the 
next release.
 
Gene's rigorous management of scarce tech writing resources is 
heartening.  Cheers :-)
 
 
Ned Bedinger
doc at edwordsmith.com



Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> In that case, the writer would be in hot water with me. I don't
> expect my writers to be telepathic, but I do expect them to
> be members of the development team for projects they're
> working on, to attend project team meetings, be up on the
> schedules, issues, etc., and to generally be part of "everyone 
> involved." 
> In cases where  writer resources have been in short supply (and when 
> are they *not?*) and the rest of the development team has been 
> unwilling to include the writer ("we don't have
> anything for you to document yet, go away"), I have gone to the 
> project manager, and in some cases, that manager's manager) to deliver 
> the news that I was reassigning their writer to another project and 
> that I would see who was available to support their project when they 
> were ready.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Amery" <kevindamery at gmail.com>
>
>
>> What if instead it's "everyone
>> involved in the product knew two weeks ago that Linux was out... but
>> we never bothered to tell the TW until now (and how come you didn't
>> figure it out telepathically, anyway?)" 
>