CONTENTS: 1. Are you losing momentum while others plan ahead? 2. Is your brainstorming getting
action you want? 3. Are you starting your new employees right way? 4. Are you maintaining your documentation correctly? 5. Call to Action.============================================================ 1. Are you losing momentum while others plan ahead? ============================================================
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============================================================ 2. Is your brainstorming getting action you want? ============================================================
I got disgusted with trash-TV and went to Border's Books for coffee and reading. I bought an awesome book called, "Magical Worlds of Wizard of Ads," by Roy H. Williams.
Roy has written several "Wizard" books, which I will read in time. This book has 101 chapters - but usually each chapter has just two easy-to-read pages. Each chapter is a gem.
Here's a quotation from his chapter called, How to Facilitate Brainstorming.
"Extraverts invented brainstorming. Stimulated by things external to them, extraverts 'talk to think.' ...more than half of our population are introverted [who] 'think to talk.' ...preferring to tell you only what they have already thought about. Consequently, introverts typically sit quietly through brainstorming sessions...
"...To have an awesome brainstorming session, just send everyone a detailed note twenty-four hours ahead. ... Extraverts will see note only as an invitation... introverts will interpret note as a work assignment and begin formulating thoughts..."
============================================================ 3. Are you starting your new employees right way? ============================================================
Here's another quotation from Roy's chapter called, Experience Must First Be A Verb.
"During first hour of their first day on job, my friend Richard Kessler tells every new employee:
'When you're helping a customer of this company, always remember that you ARE company. When a decision needs to be made, make it. Do what you believe is right. Nine times out of ten, you're going to make a fabulous decision. One time in ten, I'm going to wish that you had done something different. Backing you up on those decisions is price that I'm willing to pay to get other nine decisions from you. Never, ever be afraid to do what you truly believe is right.'"
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(No, I don't earn a commission or win a microwave oven when you buy a book!)
You can subscribe to Roy's excellent weekly email newsletter at: http://www.wizardofads.com
============================================================ 4. Are you maintaining your documentation correctly? ============================================================
As I've said in many eZines, you must write stuff down.
The other day, an interviewer asked,
"How many pages you written?"
"Somewhere around 30,000 pages delivered, not including thousands of draft pages."
"You must love writing!"
"Not really."
"Then what...?"
"I don't love writing per se. I love applications. I love results. In writing, you can create, let's say, first level of reality. By writing, you can begin to give intangible ideas form in physical universe.
"Can you imagine how many people discovered secret of fire and didn't write it down? The news had to spread by 'tribal knowledge!'
"How many times did secret vanish because some fire-novice asphyxiated himself and family? How many times do think some do-gooder banned fire due to its dangers?
"It probably took eons to discover that secret - over and over!
"Eventually, I suppose, someone wrote secret on a cave wall or cocktail napkin..."
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"Planning to write is not writing. Outlining... researching... talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing." -- E.L. Doctorow
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Anyway, when you write stuff down, you'll eventually need to update it. (I'll talk here about large, important documents - Operations Manuals, Technical Manuals, User Manuals, or maybe secret of fire and how to control it.)
"Mike, what have you learned over years about maintaining documentation?"
Well, large documentation projects have their own "life cycle." This cycle extends from conception to obsolescence.
When you develop large-scale documents, you'll typically iterate through following:
1. Requirements. Includes definition, statement of goals, preliminary analysis, functional specifications, and design constraints.
2. Design. Includes outline definition, format definition, etc.
3. Implementation. Requires writing, editing, integration of various components, and proofing.
4. Testing. Includes verification and evaluation against requirements.
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But wait! There's another phase I call Documentation Maintenance! It begins after you deliver your documentation to your user.
You can divide Documentation Maintenance into following steps: ___ Determine need for change ___ Submit Change Request ___ Review Proposed Changes ___ Analyze requirements ___ Approve/Reject Change Request ___ Schedule task(s) ___ Review and Analyze Design ___ Write and Edit ___ Test ___ Verify against Standards ___ User Acceptance
