Lesson 2: The Importance of Audience
Discuss the user base with the product manager
It's all well and good for you to determine just who your intended audience is, but if the majority of people actually using the product differ greatly from your vision then you need to adjust your plans. Another way to determine who will be using a particular product is to discuss how that product is being marketed. The product manager is usually responsible for setting the requirements and marketing direction for a product. He or she should be able to provide a 30,000 foot view of what the product does and who should be using it. In general the product manager is in charge of the overall product that ships to users including the documentation. Although the chain of command may vary from company to company, you will most likely need the product manager to sign off on your documentation plans and on your final manuals.
You may find that the product manager has a vastly different view of what the product does than you do. Product managers usually work in the abstract; they'll look at product specifications and the intended purpose of a product rather than what the developers actually made a product do when they built it. If you've based your vision on a working version of the product and it differs greatly from that of the product manager it is your responsibility to bring that discrepancy to his attention. Whenever possible, you should point out these discrepancies between plans and implementation to the developers and other interested parties as well as the product manager so that everyone understands precisely what is it the shipping product does regardless of intentions. Unless directly ordered not to do so, you should document what the product actually does rather than what it's supposed to do.
