Collaboration as innovation: why technical communicators should be members of the software development team

The author offers a theoretical basis for diversity in group problem-solving activities and draws the conclusion that a nontechnical person can be, and should be, a fully functioning member of the software development team. By `fully functioning´, the author means that the technical communicator should be involved, from the beginning, in the problem-solving, idea-generating efforts of the design team. The author´s research shows that including the technical communicator in the software development community can improve the design and development process, as well as the quality of both the product and the documentation that supports it