Comments on: "Good Enough" Really Isn't

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:51:12 +0000

Great point. In my post and our discussion, we neglected the customer perspective, which is really the most important consideration. I completely agree with your comment. Sometimes (or maybe most of the time) we may think we’re pushing our improvement of the documentation to meet users’ needs, but we don’t actually find out if it’s doing so. As a result, we don’t know whether we’re improving it in reality.

By: Alistair Christie

Alistair Christie — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:56:57 +0000

Ben
Your post leaves me wondering: who says when the documentation is “good enough”? It *should* be the customer: the people who *need* assistance. In some organisations, however, I think the “good enough” philosophy is sometimes driven by individuals outside the documentation team who really mean: “let’s just give them the minimum possible amount of documentation we can get away with while avoiding them (i.e. the customer) suing us or bad-mouthing us in public.” I’m lucky to work for a company where “good enough” documentation means: “let’s aim to deliver documentation that meets our customers’ requirements”.
The temptation is always to keep improving your documentation way past the point where anyone other than a fellow tech writer would value – or maybe even notice – your improvements. If we do this at the expense of other documentation that needs written or updated, then we’re not doing our customers any favours.

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:00:10 +0000

@Mike, Gordon, Craig,

Sounds like you have a handle on your perfectionism. I’m not at that point yet. Mike used a key word: excessively. Anything that is excessive is by definition more than is healthy. This post reflects the connotations I have with the phrase “good enough”—it involves concessions and giving up. For some, including you guys, it may not carry those negative associations. However, I agree that this is an issue we have to be smart and deliberate about in our work.

@Margaret,

Thanks for adding your voice. Perfectionists of the world, unite!

By: Margaret

Margaret — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:58:43 +0000

Ben:

I feel the same conflict you do. “Good Enough” may be what my boss and company want, and are happy to get, but when I know the product could have been better or more complete with just a little more time or effort, I have regrets that it wasn’t.
Maybe it’s an age or attitude thing, and in this economy, especially, we have to do what we can with the resources available, and balance the competing demands and restrictions. But we can always resolve to try to add what we missed this time to the next release.

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:44:37 +0000

“Good enough” is good enough only when your supervisor says so. That remains my benchmark.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:20:06 +0000

As Mike hints, the underlying thinking, as a professional, should really be focussed on ROI.

It’s a classic and much needed conflict that is at play here, where one side of the scales is weighted with cost, the other with quality. Good enough documentation should, ideally, balance the scales.

By: Mike Unwalla

Mike Unwalla — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:21:25 +0000

Quote: I wonder if settling for good enough contributes to lower job satisfaction and a feeling of not adding value.

To the contrary, ‘good enough’ maximises value. It’s an optimisation problem. Low-quality documentation results in dissatisfied customers and enquiries to a help desk. Excessively high-quality documentation wastes resources. Our task as technical communicators is to produce documentation that is ‘good enough’.