Gnaargh! Or, I Am Not Psychic

[Beth Agnew]

The problem is not that they didn't tell the techwriter, it's that they made
the change. The best development companies I have ever worked with had a
rock solid development methodology that, even though they iterated the
product, made sure there was rigorous change control. Changes aren't made at
the developer's whim or pleasure, but after review by the stakeholders. Good
companies never forget that it costs money to make a change.

Yes, sometimes things have to be changed during development to accommodate
implementation, but there should be a process whereby those changes are
ratified by a product steering committee or at least a manager of
development who understands that there are implications to such a change,
and who notifies the appropriate parties.

Lack of change control indicates an organization that has other problems.
Delivering on deadline would be one of them. :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+beth.agnew=senecac.on.ca at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+beth.agnew=senecac.on.ca at lists.techwr-l.com]On
Behalf Of arroxaneullman at aol.com

 What is so hard about ensuring the (only) Tech Writer has access to the
most recent version of the software?