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> They were
> trying to manage projects vicariously through the tech writers.
Been there, done that. At a previous employer the development
process was chaotic, and the developers shined on all attempts
to document process because they didn't want to have to be
held accountable for not following a process. The job of
documenting process was dumped on Tech Pubs, and we
were told if the developers wouldn't cooperate to document
how the QA manager *thought* things ought to be done. Of
course, nobody followed this, and my senior staff and I saw the
approaching "inaccurate process documentation scapegoat train"
coming a mile away. We are all no longer with that company as
it sets slowly into the west.
> It's a little bit of both. The entire project is out of control
Anytime somebody, anybody, attempts to rein in an out of
control process, there will inevitably be a power struggle,
between one party wanting to be in control and everyone
else wanting to continue the nobody-in-control status quo.
If the struggle is between two parties wanting to be the one
in control, though, it's an indication that the lack of control
extends to a level above both.
> I think I resolved the situations by putting the proposed solution into
> effect.
The best way to throw light on a bad process is often to follow
it to the letter. assuming you can do that without producing an
unrecoverable disaster.
> So the project managers staged a coup and convinced the PMO that my solution
> was better. Ha ha...ha ha.
The meeting control part was always wacky. But one part of
the proposed solution, having a point at which ownership of
document content passes into the hands of some higher authority
that must bless further changes in advance, is really a good thing
in an out-of-control development process. Your proposed
solution appears not to have anything that verifies that all those
"documents" the Sharepoint users upload into the system for you
to work on should exist at all. Unless there was some step in
the process I missed...?
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