ITauthor

The Content Wrangler has an interesting article by Lisa Woods about the cost (in more than just money) of protracted reviews of a document. The overview of a computer system she was tasked with producing was finally approved eight months after the original deadline at an estimated minimum cost of $53,000. It was a 15 page document, and no one was happy with the final result - including its author. The article contains some advice if you find yourself in a similar situation. Personally, the advice I would give is just to be more dictatorial about what goes in the document. I've always taken the view with document reviews that I'm the author and I'll decide what goes in the document - all I'll carry the can if I get it wrong. If a reviewer suggests changes I don't agree with, those changes don't go in. Do reviewers get to review the updated version of the document: absolutely not. I go back to them for a second review if I need to clarify something and I direct them very precisely to what I want them to review and leave them in no doubt that they are almost certainly wasting their time by commenting on anything else.