Update: I'm delighted with the latest additions to my web consulting portfolio, the new STC India portal, and its newsletter, Indus.
Several product development teams use Q-Gate milestones to track, communicate, and move forward at various stages of development. Each milestone, identified by a number (for example, M260), indicates the progress of all related processes/projects, including technical documentation.
So, what is Q-Gate?
[This article has been published in TechCraft, April 2009 edition of the newsletter. You can download the PDF copy.]
What the heck are you talking about?
Yep, this article is inspired by the animation movie with the same title. In many ways, a technical communicator works like a bug (or an ant). There is a line (style and authoring guidelines) that you must stick to. As soon as you deviate, there’s a supervisor (editor) ready to beat you back to the line (conform to standards).
Some time back, there was an interesting discussion about the future of Technical Writing (TW).
Someone said, the way the standards and guides are being framed, there would be a day when TW would have templates and almost no scope for errors.
[This article has been published in INDUS, December 2008 edition, archived at http://www.stc-india.org/indus/122008/index.htm. To view the article, browse to the bottom of the page for a list of articles or go to Viewpoint > May I Help You?
You can also download the PDF copy.]
Leveraging Product Technical Support Teams to Improve Documentation
Write in Exile
Whether you are working in a traditional or new age environment, technical documentation needs to traverse through the usual grind of user and task analysis, multiple drafts, and review cycles. This grind leaves little or no scope for technical communicators to receive or address customer feedback. Let’s admit it, most of us work in exile, away from the customers who matter the most, for whose cause we toil away day in and day out.
@ my world (personal blog)