Tracking Reviewers' Comments

Thanks to everyone who responded. You all gave me a lot to think about.

I realized as I got the comments that I left out a crucial piece of information...the manual went out to our managers and maintenance specialists in the field (we have offices all over the United States). Thus, we can't hold traditional meetings.

Anyway, on with the summary.

Several people thought that the spreadsheet idea was a good idea and had some improvements/refinements of the process.

Lee Tesdell suggested:

"Try categorizing the comments first. I would suggest that you come up with say four categories of comments first: content, organization, clarity, and grammar, for example. Then sit down with several colleagues and categorize all of the feedback that you have received under those four headings. You'll probably benefit in two ways: (1) you'll find that there is duplication and therefore you can eliminate some of the comments, and (2) you'll have a better organized set of comments to track."

Lynda Straus reviewed how she got and consolodated comments:

"I took each policy, one at a time, and spoke with all affected parties, sometimes in meetings, but often individually. They also got together in small groups on their own when they realized that the tech writer was getting conflicting info (as they could see from all the reviewer's comments on all the copies I carried around) and came to a consensus and then notified me."

I wish that would work here! Everyone gets excited about the manual, but no one really wants to commit their knowledge to writing. I get conflicting information all the time - often while meeting with the group. I usually end up summarizing it all and forcing them into a decision. Outside of the meetings, I have to drag information out of the SME's.

Geoff Lane took the spreadsheet idea a step further and suggested that it might be more practical to design a database in Access. Doing so offers the ability to sort data and a flexibility of presentation. Further discussions with him ruled this out, since I don't have any experience with databases or Access and this situation should be a one-time only thing. Here's the heart of his post:

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