rounding up my straying projects

Subject: rounding up my straying projects
From: Berk/Devlin <armadill -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 00:55:10 -0700

On Thu, 17 May 2001 12:41:28 -0000, the impressively organized "Kim Forbes" <kim_portonova -at- hotmail -dot- com> wrote:
>Ok, I'm working on three main projects. One is going wonderfully. ... The second project was a combined User manual, policy and procedure manual, and training guide. ... project is on hold. ...
>
>The third project, well, how do I start. . . (It is so bad it deserves its
>own paragraph :)) ... I have an unusable program. I told the project manager that I could not document it because it didn't work. (Honest!! It just didn't work....
>
>How do I round up these last two wild children projects of mine?

Kim:

I am not as certain as you are that you cannot document an unusable program.

Obviously, you cannot document an unusable program by RUNNING it and observing how it works. And it's unlikely that you'll want to take screen shots, since these will all change five minutes before the program is finally released anyway. (I, personally, abhor taking screen shots. IMO, screens ought to explain themselves. Guess it's a good thing I don't usually have to deal with GUIs, huh?)

However, I often document programs that are not scheduled to be working for a year or more after I start documenting them. "How is this done?" you ask, shocked, just shocked. Well, you could:

1. Request a spec, read it and document how the program is supposed to work. By doing this, you will also be performing a service for QA. If there is not a spec, you might volunteer to write one and then write the documentation for it, in which case you'd be performing a service for both QA and the programming team.

2. Interview the program designer(s) or the project manager or the programmer(s) and document what you learn. By doing so, you would be performing a service for the programmer(s).

Regardless, the important thing is to have fun.

BTW: I'm mostly responding because I enjoyed reading the sentence "(It is so bad it deserves its own paragraph :))".

--Emily

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Emily Berk ~
On the web at www.armadillosoft.com *** Armadillo Associates, Inc. ~
~ Project management, developer relations and ~
extremely-technical technical documentation that developers find useful.~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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