FAQ
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Frequently Asked Questions about checklists and templates from Mercury
Consulting Ltd.
Table of Contents
Glossary |
Terms of Purchase
Does my "Visa Government" Card work?
Question:
Why Checklists ?
Question:
The templates and checklists don't fit exactly for my company
I am not a DBA (Database Administrator), which products are usable for me?
Question:
My word processor uses the file extension ".doc", what
should I do with the files with extension ".rtf" ?
Question:
We started a project to define standards. We have time to write
them ourselves, why should we purchase those templates ?
Question:
Why do Mercury Consulting's products not cover functional requirements
?
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Question: Why Checklists ?
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| Answer: What's better ? - A 800
page book or a 20 page checklist ?
Books transfer knowledge, but as long it is not applied
without any gap it does not improve the business - any forgotten
item might cause high follow-up costs.
And to ensure that no detail is forgotten - that's
the purpose of checklist!
In case that the question in the checklist is not understood,
or it is not known how to solve the issue addressed in the
question, then a book, a consultant, a training - or a combination
- is required. In this case the checklist helps to identify
a knowledge gap. |
|
Question: The templates and checklists don't fit exactly for
my company |
|
A generic template never can fit 100% for everybody, but
therefore those documents are delivered as text files which
you can customize using any word processor. But this customization
by deleting, rewording or adding is still much more efficient
than starting from the scratch. |
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I am not a DBA (Database Administrator), which products are usable for me? |
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We provide several database independent products which are of interest for operations managers, test managers, development managers...
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Question: My word processor
uses the file extension ".doc", what should I do
with the files with extension ".rtf" ? |
|
There are many popular word processors used worldwide, e.g.
in alphabetical order:
IBM Lotus WordPro extension .lwp
Microsoft Winword extension .doc
Sun OpenOffice extension .swx
Sun StarOffice extension .swx
Using one of them for distribution would discriminate others.
And your word processor might not provide an import filter
for that specific format. Therefore we decided to use the
vendor independent, neutral "Rich Text Format"
with extension ".rtf" for distribution. All word
processors known to us support this format. |
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Question: We started
a project to define standards. We have time to write them
ourselves, why should we purchase those templates ? |
|
Answer:
(1) The documents cost between 60 and 200 USD. Use your
internal costs for manhours in IT and calculate how many
hours you can work for that. We suggest you purchase the
template and spend your time on understanding, discussing
and customizing all those items according your department-
and team structure.
(2) Assuming that only 60% of the items in our templates
are relevant for you, it's still faster to delete 40% than
to write the 60% from scratch. And we are sure that you
wuld forget some (even important) items at all.
Conclusion: Purchasing and customizing Mercury Consulting's
templates enables you to deliver in less time for less costs
documents which are more complete than starting yourself
from scratch. |
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Question: Why do Mercury
Consulting's products not cover functional requirements ? |
|
Answer:
(1)
Mercury Consulting Ltd. is not a publishing company but
an consulting company with core competence is in the area
of IT-operations. Our products are based on real world experience
and real world needs in the area of IT-operations. Therefore
we will not create products outside of our competence just
for the sake to have a complete product portfolio.
(2)
Functional Requirements are specific to each application,
e.g. CRM, ERP or a billing system.
(3)
As requirement templates are available for functional requirements
there is no need to write similar documents.
(4)
Functional Requirements are usually carefully defined by
the business representatives in the project team, often
using application specific requirements templates available
on the market.
We
recommend that you purchase application specific requirement
templates and merge them with our customized document "Non-Functional
Requirements" (product code NFREQ). |
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