[austechwriter] Re: Information mapping: I'm not convinced
- From: "Steve Hudson" <cruddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 19:02:48 +1000
Indeed, the basic concept is simple enough, its experience and pooled
workgroups that really make it shine.
You chunk your documents. You use standard chunks.
For example, I'm a bit of an expert on P&P and corporate doco structures in
general. So, rather than a procedure being a single large chunk of body
text, we analyze the actual content of each fragment and put it where it
belongs.
Scope
Considerations
Prerequisites
Authorisation
Procedure
Troubleshooting
Records and Retention
Related documentation
By doing this you drastically simplify the actual procedural part and make
the information much more accessible to the reader.
To take this simple approach all the way requires information templates and
models for common constructs. There are a few ways of going about developing
your own, including a course on it ;-) I don't know much about the Tactics
course per se, but I have a large enough whack of my readership and
respected peerage say they loved it, which is more than enough for me to say
it is probably worth the money.
Some of the finesses you get out of doing this include, but are not limited
to:
Instant Gap Analysis (totally no brainer stuff)
Reduction of verbage, simplified English.
Data flow mapping and thus process validation
An example of the last. Processes are vague beasts. However, if you
structure them like this, you can instantly play match ups with your inputs
and your outputs. Every input has to be present in the output, in some
transformation. The R&R block ensures every action has an assigned role, and
those roles can almost determine their part from their responsibilities
alone.
Scope
Roles and Responsibilities
Inputs
Outputs
Process
Flowchart
Troubleshooting
Records and Retention
Related documentation
Steve Hudson
Word Heretic, Sydney, Australia
Tricky stuff with Word or words for you.
Email: word_heretic@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Products: http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/products.html
Spellbooks: 735 pages of dump left and dropping...
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Bligh
Perhaps a proponent of the method could enlighten me as to what IM can
actually do for me and my company? The Tactics website didn't have me
jumping to sign up for a course.
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