Re: SUMMARY: Online Help TW teams at MS

[Mary Deaton <m_deaton -at- KWARE -dot- COM>]

One small correction, there are user education groups within each product
group at Microsoft. These are managed separately from the development group
except on the smallest of projects.

A product group is considered part of the R&D operation. Each product group
has a user education manager and large ones have writing managers and
editing managers and production managers.

You also have leads, working project managers, for each component of a doc
set for a particular product. They represent user education on the project
leads committee. The project leads committee includes development, testing,
program management, product management, localization and maybe tech support.
They are the coodinating body for the entire product effort.

Also, any training materials are developed completely outside the product
group, usually at Microsoft Press or at Catapult under an outsource
contract.


Mary Deaton
President, KNOWware, LLC
(206) 682-6113
*       Smart User Assistance and Training http://www.kware.com
*       Microsoft MVP for HTML Help
*       Program Associate, Winwriters 2000 Online Conference
http://www.winwriters.com/ohc.htm
*       Speaker, Help Technology Conference,
http://www.winwriters.com/htc99.htm




===========================

David W. Locke wrote:

Steve McConnell in Rapid Development says that 20% of development is an
appropriate level of staffing for training-doc department. There is no
separate doc department at MS. This figure is for all learning product
components of the document set.

Another CS thought leader, Casper Jones says 4 hours per function point.

MS has in the past used a very deliberate content distribution strategy to
foster customer relationships and expertise.
(snip)


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