meaning & practice of a "doc freeze"

Subject: meaning & practice of a "doc freeze"
From: "stacy naus" <snaus2003 -at- msn -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 07:28:51 -0600


Does anyone out there use a "documentation freeze" approach in their doc
development/production strategy?

My understanding/practice is that a "doc freeze" is much like a code freeze;
no new content or changes are accepted from the Subject Matter
Experts/developers. BUT if we go with that definition, then the practice is
this: during doc freeze, you are then still making revisions (due to the
fact that revisions were submitted up until the date of the freeze).

So my question is, once you have produced a "final" after the freeze date,
do you then submit the final back to the SMEs or developers? I ask because
if I do this, they still want to make changes. So why should we submit a
"final" to them at all at that point? Why not just call it done & send it
to the release cycle? And if the SME's/Developers want to see the final,
they can look at it in PDF format on the network. The rest of the
development team misunderstands the meaning of "doc freeze" if they believe
they can still have input to the doc after that. So what are your
practices? To submit, or not to submit, a final after the "freeze"?

Comments?

Thanks!


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