Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!jimad
From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Amount of Design Documentation
Message-ID: <56416@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 8 Aug 90 18:34:36 GMT
References: <Eail8ur0BwwAEiGEo8@transarc.com> <2314@polari.UUCP> <13581@yunexus.YorkU.CA>
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 15

In article <13581@yunexus.YorkU.CA| davecb@yunexus.YorkU.CA (David Collier-Brown) writes:
|  My preferred approach is to write the user manual first, and then get
|it checked by
|	1) the marketdroids, to see if i **have** a real product
|	   (carefully ignoring their particular suggestions (:-))
|	2) the (lonely)  ergonomist, to see if I have a usable product,
|	3) our RFP-response manager to see if it meets what the customers
|	   have been asking for (nb: NOT the marketing deptarement, I
|	   want the raw data).
|	4) a customer volunteer, so they know what we're proposing and
|	   have a chance to scream.

The Japanese affiliate of a prior employer of mine wouldn't start on a project
until the engineers on that project had amassed at least 200 customer visits.
That company won a Deming award, if I remember right.