Re: Hershey's -- MIDRANGE-L

In my last business incarnation, we spent -big- bucks on documentation.

It sat in a drawer.  The manager wouldn't give it to the workers.  Gee,
they might read it a know more than the manager! <g>

For the past 10 years, we've taken the tack of building a user guide as
a part of the individual education.  It adds time/cost at the front end,
but saves at the back end. Sort of that ounce of prevention ...

The side benefit is that the user gets that warm and fuzzy feeling that
only time spent with them can give.

IMHO, we, in the IS community are used to RTFM, users are not in this
mode. You might say that they are more accustomed to verbal orders.

Alan Campin wrote:
> 
> My universal experience.
> 
> I once was required to spend 3 months documenting an entire system. Finished
> it all. Put it in a binder like they use in auto parts store and put it next
> to the computer. Then every single day the user that was so hot to have it
> done would come to me and ask me how something worked and I would say, "Did
> you check the documentation" and everyday I would he would say, "Never mind
> that, just tell me what I want to know". Finally just started to tell him to
> check the documentation and he grabbed me one day and demanded I tell him.
> We almost got into a fist fight. So much for documentation.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Langston [mailto:jlangston@conexfreight.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 1999 5:43 PM
> To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
> Subject: Hershey's
> 
> SOME people don't read the manual?  In my experience, 99.44% of the
> people
> don't read the manual.
> 
> I had a manager keep asking me questions on a system.  I got together
> all the
> documentation on it, put it in a nice binder, and gave it to her.  She
> still asked
> me questions that I knew were in the docs I gave her (and the docs
> weren't
> even that thick).  I asked her if she read the docs I gave her, she
> hadn't gotten
> around to it.  6 months later she still hadn't gotten around to it, nor
> anyone in
> her department who I showed all of them where the docs were.
> 
> A computer guru in the real world is the person who reads the docs.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Jim Langston
> 
> > <SNIP>
> 
> > Problems can arise from many factors such as:  sales says something
> like "The
> > AS/400 runs itself, you don't need IS people!"; the consultants are
> put on a job
> > with little or no training on a product or sometimes the platform;
> failure of
> > users to get behind an implementation; and I also believe that some
> people don't
> > read the manual.
> 
> <SNIP>
> 
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