I spent last couple months working in technology division of one of most revered companies. It was one of the most challenging assignments I have ever worked on. It was one of the most complex architectures; and lack of documentation made it even more complex. I had no idea that, I will have to play Spy’s role along with providing technical solutions. My education has equipped me with enough the technical knowledge but no spying techniques :-( .
I talked to many people inside and outside of the group, on the importance of documentation. Everyone turned cold shoulders to me saying, “We are driven by business, I will rather do some useful work than documentation (I never knew documentation is useless thing).” Well people should understand that only 20% time is spent in developing software where as 80% time is spent in maintaining it.
Well if you think you have right of saving 10 minutes of your time while developing a component and then wasting 20 minutes of someone else’s time every time he/she comes to fix it, then you have a problem.
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2 comments:
If a software is developed, it can be maintained. People face a lot of problems developing that 20% you mentioned.
I am sure you'd want to benefit from others experience as well as yours. If that's true then I'd be delighted to share with you an information that in my experience and to my knowledge, I have seen people doing heavy documentation and not using it.
The Microsoft Operating System is such complex a system by itself that there isn't a Specification/Requirement document for all the components it has.
Here is a universal truth: More than 95% of test plans written are not updated. So the case with other documentation.
Rapid Software Testing talks about "No Wasteful Documentation".
Look around ourselves: In our home/office/friends: How many people refer to the help file, installation guide, Troubleshooting guide before they push the phone buttons to ask Customer Care what's wrong with their product.
Documentation is to communicate. There are other forms of communication that organizations have started to exploit. For instance you might see a lot of Flash demos of product.
Reading is a skill and is hard to practice. If it wasn't a skill and if it were easy to practice - there would be more than 90% pass in all exams all over the world.
Each person's writing style and lingo are so different that every written piece of information that is critical might need a lot of questioning or clarification and hence calls for more time.
Most companies want to reduce cost of the products they produce to maximize their profits. The documentation favorite freaks I have encountered are from the services companies in India.
You don't need to agree to any of the ideas I shared but I would be glad to listen to you after a couple of years if you still have the same stand about documentation.
10 minutes of your documentation about documentation has translated into 5 minutes of my reading 15 minutes of my reply. That's 20 minutes. If you write a document for a team of 100, and each spends half a day reading it and you have to further update the comments and ask for their next half day for second review... the cost of the documentation is something expensive. Instead giving a thought of cost v/s value might be a good idea.
I am not opposing documentation but I am strongly opposing wasteful documentation.
A 100 million Apple iPods were sold 6 months back. I am not sure how many of the 100 million read documentation of that Apple produced for its iPod as a user manual?
Pradeep,
Thanks a lot for going thr my post and putting your views on that. Now here are my comments.
1. Microsoft OS doesn't document all the components of its OS.
Should I point out it clearly relfects in the OS itself.
2. Rapid S/W testing advertises "NO Wasteful documentation".
Important word is 'Wasteful' and not the 'documentation'. I guess you are talking about
Exploratory Testing.
3. People don/t read installation guides etc
I can't help much abt it.
4. Flash demos : Alternative way of communication
What abt cost involed in creating such demos and needless to say you will have to
update Flash Demos when product itself changes.
5. Reading is a skill...
If you are in tech company and part of team working with smartest ppl, you ought hv reading skill.
Exams are not abt ability to read, in most cases it is ability to memorise and in very few its about
ability to analytical skills.
6. Persons writting style and lingo
I guess you still unaware about UML and other universely accepted forms of documentation
7. Cost reduction ...
Reducing cost by cutting documentation just shifts the cost. Proper documentation will definitely help
fixes problems in much shorter duration, than without proper documentation.
8. And you missed imp time, 10 mins of my documentation today will help saving 1000 mins of eploration time
Pardon typos.
~Pushkar
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