FWD: How is documentation distributed with your application?

[Mike Starr]

Your company seems to follow a rather unorthodox procedure. I'm not sure I 
understand what exactly you mean when you say

> 1.       Does your company release the documentation with the
>    application or after the application has been completed?

My experience has been that programs are not released to customers (except 
for beta testers) until the application (and the accompanying documentation) 
is completed AND tested. At that point, the "gold" CD for manufacturing is 
created and released to production and should contain the final versions of 
both the application and the documentation. Changes to the documentation 
from that point forward should be minor updates... corrections of typos, 
etc. Releasing an application to customers before internal testing is 
completed is, in effect, telling your customers that you don't value them 
enough to release a product that's as good as it can be.

With regard to your question #3...

> 3.       Is it reasonable to expect the documentation to be distributed
> at the same time as the application?

The answer is that it's perfectly reasonable to expect that but we technical 
writers don't always get to make policy decisions. We can complain loud and 
long (and sometimes, though it should be rare, bitterly) but these sorts of 
decisions are the purview of the product manager. If you've made your case 
to the PTB (or PHB, whatever the case may be) and been denied, suck it up 
and do your job to the best of your ability. If you can't live with that, 
it's time to freshen your resume and start seeking a new position.

Best regards,

Mike
--
Mike Starr                            WriteStarr Information Services
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Phone: (262) 694-1028 - Tollfree: (877) 892-1028 - Fax:(262) 697-6334
Email: mike at writestarr.com      -      Web: http://www.writestarr.com

--------------------------------------------------
From: "TECHWR-L Administrator" <admin at techwr-l.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 10:14 AM
To: <techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com>
Subject: FWD: How is documentation distributed with your application?

> My company like to distribute the documentation after the code and
> testing has been completed. I have been striving to change this
> mentality and get the documentation released with the application.
> However, there is a great deal of resistance to this. The application is
> released to manufacturing (RTM) and before it goes out to customers, the
> documentation is completed. However, there is always a “catch up”
> situation going on and the documentation is proof-read but not always
> thoroughly tested.
>
> At present some documentation is released with the product and the
> remaining documentation is obtained by downloading the documentation
> from the company’s website. I think this means that customers do not
> always have the up to date versions of the documentation and the
> documentation is not always in the folder structure which is required to
> use Adobe Catalog.
>
> My questions to you all are as follows:
>
>
> 1.       Does your company release the documentation with the
>    application or after the application has been completed?
>
> 2.       How do customers obtain documentation ?
>
>   a.       With the application
>   b.      From the company’s website
>   c.       A combination of a. and b.
>   d.      Other
>
> 3.       Is it reasonable to expect the documentation to be distributed
> at the same time as the application?
>
>
> Thanks for your time.