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Subject:Re: Working remotely from development team From:Guru <guru -at- BOM5 -dot- VSNL -dot- NET -dot- IN> Date:Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:06:29 +0530
Hello Bevan,
I work in Bombay (India) for a company in USA and I can imagine your
situation.
One of the major problems that I have faced in remote documentation is that
the actual application is not available to me. I make do with the screens,
by seeing it in Visual Basic (so I have had to use a new software). A
solution for this could be to work temporarily where the application is
available. Make notes and then go back and do the documentation. I did work
on-site for a few months and now I am carrying out the work off-site.
There is a need for a good documentation leader at the development site to
do the coordination. In lone writer type of situation the documenation
efforts can become very messy otherwise.
Review are always a problem in any situation. It becomes worse in remote
documentation situation. You have to endlessly wait for review comments
(No, this is not based on my current assignment. Just a general comment.)
In my first such assignment, reviews would come after months and I would
sleep on the job (and wrote a popular column called DocuMentor -- which made
me quite famous.)
Internet connectivity has improved tremendously in India. Thanks to good
Internet connectivity and Net Meetings -- I am always in touch with the rest
of the team at remote locations. All of us follow good email practices and
techniques. All of us are Internet savvy. So working remotely is
considerably easy thanks to this approach to Internet. The company follows a
practice of Virtual Office -- you can work at the Office, home, etc. So
everyone is comfortable working remotely.
Incidentally, I did visit the development team and others and struck a
rapport with them. Likewise, I did get a chance to meet "locals" and
understand them and their needs. Knowing the readers/users is important and
I appreciate the efforts of my company to have borne so much of expense to
help me understand the audience.
Software incompatibilities could be an issue (e.g. if the two locations have
two different versions of Microsoft Project!). However, we all use the same
software so this is not a problem. Our company uses the "best of the breed"
technologies. This is a great help in remote work.
I think it is not a common practice at all for TWrs to be separated from the
development team. I think only during implementation or maintenance -- the
technical writer may be needed on location.
If you have any questions, please feel to write to me -- on or off the list.
Hope this has been of some help.
>Is it a common practice in software development for TWs to work from a
>different location to that of the development team?
>
>I am thinking specifically of situations where the TW is located in the
>target market, and the development team is located in another country.
>
>For those of you who have done it, can you tell us something about how the
>experience was? What problems did you have that you don't have when in the
>same location as development? Were there any special techniques you used?
