Interviewing/getting info from SMEs

Subject: Interviewing/getting info from SMEs
From: Patty Ewy <pewy -at- ICONTROL -dot- ANZA -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 14:11:41 -0500

I work for a relatively young software development company. I was the
first tech writer on board, but now we are adding several more. Only one
of the new people will have specific tech writing experience, so I am
trying to get some procedures in place for them.

One of the things that has really been a challenge is getting a system that
makes sure that we get all the information we need from the development
staff. Initially, the tech writers are just given pre-release versions of
the software, and we're supposed to just click around and figure out how
it's supposed to work. This is OK in the "getting your feet wet" stages,
but (not surprisingly!) we've come across more and more situations where
we've almost missed features. The development staff doesn't do much in
terms of upfront designing-often there are no plans or feature lists the
tech writers can use as source documents. Usually I catch this stuff
because I eat lunch with these folks, I eavesdrop a lot, and I am just
plain nosy. I can't count on all the new folks being as obnoxious as I am,
so I would like to have some sort of framework in place. One of the new
folks seems frankly astonished that the developers don't notify us each
time they make a change that affects the documentation; he also seems to
think that we should be able to get stuff from the developers (written
stuff, not actual software) that spells most of this stuff out.

How do you do this? Do you get at least a feature list from the developers
to start with, and then just develop a list of questions from there? Do
you go ahead and try to figure out 90 percent of the system before you talk
to the developers, or do you expect them to be able to explain the system's
basic concepts and everything to you? What mechanisms do you have in place
for when they change their systems (either in the underneath, how-it-works
part, or in the interface)?

Any and all help would be greatly greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Patty Ewy
pewy -at- icontrol -dot- anza -dot- com


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