And I can’t either. You’ve got to face the facts – as a business analyst, no one is going to read your documentation because of your poetic commentary, your witty explanations or your inspired diagrams. At most, people might read it because they have to. So why do we get so attached to our masterpieces?
Posts Tagged: documentation
20
Aug 08
Lazy Documents
I have seen my fair share of templates. For each document a business systems analyst is expected to produce, there is a pre-made formula. At first, I thought it was like colouring in – you get an outline, you colour in between the lines and at the end, you have a masterpiece. It quickly became apparent that this approach wouldn’t turn me into the next Picasso.
The problem with the way most templates are used is that a single template is designed to encompass a humungously broad range of vaguely related scenarios. Matching this vast, vague template beast to any specific focused software development project I have ever worked on is a painful exercise both for the writer and the reader (on the off-chance your audience tries to read it). Software projects vary substantially: one project may be process focused; another may revolve around the UI; and, yet another may involve purely back-end processing. Sometimes people forget that templates are intended as a starting point, a guide or cue and should never become a rigid exercise of filling-in a form without regard for the purpose of the writing in the first place.