Figure 1 — Document Development Environment Quadrangle
Standard Output
This is what everyone wants, but it is an "extreme" because the conditions necessary to produce it are usually not understood and so rarely achieved. Standard Output is achieved when the final deliverable is being or will be produced in the following environment:
Well disciplined authors (understand and follow agreed good practice
procedures) and are competent in their field(s).
The
text output is or will be a planned, continuous logical sequence of information with
straightforward graphics.
The
people creating the document have total control over the delivered format (which
effectively removes task complexity as a major development issue because the
document developers can control it).
Magic
This is the environment characterised by chaos and garbage in, but a Standard Output product is required. It is the worst development environment because it is characterised by the view that the documentation is just a blankety-blank nuisance that has to be written with the least amount of effort from everyone involved in "real work". Magic documentation is what happens when the final product is being or will be produced in the following environment:
The
"contributors" are undisciplined (no inclination to follow any procedure,
except their own, which they see as the only way to do it) and they have poor writing abilities
(even though they may be highly competent in their field(s)).
In the
past, the documents have looked like at least ten people wrote them while talking only to
each other (no practical understanding of the customer). The graphics make sense only to the people who drew them.
Although the deliverable format is in the control of the document development team, it
is usually turned into an unmaintainable art-form that is difficult to manage during
development and impossible to maintain post-delivery. (The complexity of the task
is not an issue in this environment; it is overwhelmed by
the complexity of the environment itself!)
Typically the contributors in this environment always know, after the fact, how to do it better next time, but never do.
Highly Structured
This environment is dominated by the complexity of the deliverable document. It is typical of bid response environments. This environment needs mature processes if you want to deliver the product without losing your sanity or your shirt (that is, your company or department profit margin for the job). This condition exists when the final product is being or will be produced in the following environment:
Authors who can work co-operatively under tight time constraints; who are competent in
the their field(s) and well disciplined in accepting and following pre-existing
procedures.
The
document is often data driven (such as, tabular data, financials) with limited options for
for narrative text and yet it must be well presented, coherent and make a positive
impression on its target audience. On the other hand, it may require mainly narrative text, in your own format.
The
document development team have little or no control over an imposed, rigid, complex
format. Without help, the task complexity can overwhelm the authors and detract from
the quality of the final document.
Nightmare
In a few words, any job that has been left to a time when it is almost impossible to provide the necessary information at a satisfactory standard. The typical response is to throw more people at it. Wrong — you have more chance of pulling it off with fewer, clearer thinking heads. You need a SWAT Team. But remember, Heroes do not come cheap. Before committing to this task, ask yourself these questions:
Why
are you doing this?
Will
someone literally die if you do not complete this task? (Let's get some
perspective on the real importance of the matter.)
Given
that nothing is impossible for those who do not have to do it, how committed are the
senior managers to finding a real solution that is achievable in the number of hours
available to do the work?
What
are you trying to achieve?
Will
the company collapse if you do not succeed with this document? If so, maybe spending
money on a panic-driven approach is the worst thing to do. There are other ways; talk
to us.
Lasotell staff typically use conference-style dictaphones to simplify information gathering. This lets technical staff present their material in any way it suits them and to talk about it in a conversational manner. We produce the written material from the recording. It saves the technical people a large percentage of their time. (One hour of recording turns into five or six pages of text that would otherwise have taken at least two to three hours per page of engineer time to write). The engineer needs only to review and markup the output from the Technical Writer.
For more information, please e-mail us or visit the Contacts page for other avenues of contact.
