Document post analysis?

Subject: Document post analysis?
From: "Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:12:49 -0500


Anachie Shakespear wonders: <<Has anyone out there had any experience in
conducting a document post analysis, both from a customer point of view and
from an internal point of view (engineers, writers, marketing folks,
etc.)...>>

No direct experience, though we've certainly done our fair share of sitting
around discussing what we did and didn't like about what we've done. I think
before you even consider starting such a project, you clearly need to
identify what you're trying to achieve: do you just want to catch any typos
that slipped through the editing process, or identify major substantive
errors that arose when an SME didn't do a proper review of what you wrote?
Each has an entirely different approach.

My recommendation: Start by identifying the stakeholders (e.g., does
marketing really need to be involved in documentation?), then pin down their
precise goals for this evaluation. Once you've got that information, we can
provide more targeted advice. But if you don't know what you're trying to
achieve, you're not going to achieve it other than by chance.

--Geoff Hart, ghart -at- [delete]videotron -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada

"Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the
earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do
so. The first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly
paid."--Bertrand Russell

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