Starting with your first bullet, I'd ask what is she supposed to accomplish? Is this defending your job? The department? Looking for ways to improve? Maybe it's a rhetorical question and her audience already knows what they want to hear. Also, IMO bullet points invite argument. It's better to control that somewhat by posing some common cases of "doc failure" and showing what went wrong. For example: *Symptoms and Causes of Doc Failure* Technical audience does not use doc, thinks it's too "marketing-ish" - Not writing to a well-understood target audience Operator audience does not use doc, too much "theory" - Not writing to a well-understood target audience, Including too much information Admin audience does not use doc, too "push-button" - Not writing to a well-understood target audience, Including too little background information Doc production cycle is always in crisis mode - Failure to bring documentation into the project early enough in the project
On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 12:48 PM, <john.x.pos...@us.hsbc.com> wrote: > > Hi, guys...by end of today, I need to present to my manager a few bullet > points for a presentation she is doing on Monday. > > The subject is: "What Causes Documentation to Fail" > > I've started with a few points: > > Not writing to a well-understood target audience > Including too little or too much information > Failure to bring documentation into the project early enough in the > project > Failure to establish a governance, review, and approval structure > Lack of clear roles and responsibilities > Belief that “anyone can produce acceptable documentation” > Lack of feedback early enough in the process to implement without > wasting a large amount of work and/or affecting deadline > Scope creep > > Anyone want to add more to the list? > > > John X Posada > SR AML Syst & Ops Supt Data Analyst | Global Risk Analytics | HSBC North > America Holdings Inc > 330 Madison Ave., NY NY > > __________________________________________________________________ > > > > > > Phone > Int: 212-525-5483 Ext: 646-735-1857 > Fax > Conference Bridge - 877-304-0052, Code 74809254 > Email > john.x.pos...@us.hsbc.com > > __________________________________________________________________ > Protect our environment - please only print this if you have to! > > > > ----------------------------------------- > ****************************************************************** > This E-mail is confidential. It may also be legally privileged. If > you are not the addressee you may not copy, forward, disclose or > use any part of it. If you have received this message in error, > please delete it and all copies from your system and notify the > sender immediately by return E-mail. > > Internet communications cannot be guaranteed to be timely, secure, > error or virus-free. The sender does not accept liability for any > errors or omissions. > ****************************************************************** > SAVE PAPER - THINK BEFORE YOU PRINT! > _______________________________________________ > > This message is from the Framers mailing list > > Send messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com > Visit the list's homepage at http://www.frameusers.com > Archives located at > http://www.mail-archive.com/framers%40lists.frameusers.com/ > Subscribe and unsubscribe at > http://lists.frameusers.com/listinfo.cgi/framers-frameusers.com > Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com -- <http://www.actifio.com/> *John Sgammato, Documentation Architect* *e* john.sgamm...@actifio.com *c* 508.927.2083 *t* @actifiodocs <http://twitter.com/actifiodocs> 333 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 <http://twitter.com/actifio> <http://www.linkedin.com/company/399246> <https://plus.google.com/102870897962348937868/posts> <http://www.youtube.com/user/actifio> <http://www.actifio.com/> *Manage, access, and protect your data with a single platform that saves you time, money, and complexity.* _______________________________________________ This message is from the Framers mailing list Send messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com Visit the list's homepage at http://www.frameusers.com Archives located at http://www.mail-archive.com/framers%40lists.frameusers.com/ Subscribe and unsubscribe at http://lists.frameusers.com/listinfo.cgi/framers-frameusers.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com
