As a "consultant" my impression is he is trying to justify his fees by telling the boss he is there to save him from you. If your program was written in-house for that company and they are happy with it they don't need a user manual if they have a very low employee turnover and are willing to train anybody new.
The analysis should be done before the program is written but in businesses of the size you are talking about the program often grows organically by interaction between the boss and users and the "programmer"
But now the question is: Why is a business this size bringing in a "consultant" and is he there to rewrite or replace your program ? If you are an employee and he is a professional this may be a good chance to learn something and be the resident expert after he leaves. If you are "the old consultant" then it will all depend on how well the new guy understands the needs ( and personalities ) of those other 5 people.
If he's a pro and you're not you may have to learn some new stuff to make a living doing software. When I started in this stuff 25 years ago you could be pretty much an amateur and still be in big demand ( thank goodness ) but now there are a whole lot of people who actually learned this stuff in school. That is their strength and sometimes their weakness, but those of us old "self-taught" programmers definitely have to keep learning to stay competitive.
>i hv been a progrmmer for a few years most of it self taught, no fancy college stuff. recently our company hired a consultant and he was surprised that i hv not yet created a
>
>functional analysis
>program analysis
>user manual
>
>of the program
>
>and a lot of other stuff,
>
>we only have 5 employees in our company, everyone knows the program inside out.
>
>my question here is
>
>1. how important are these things and what are these things (except the user manual which i understand)
>
>2. is the consultant just trying to impress my boss
>
>3. what other documentations are there which are necessary to be done along with the program?
>
>4. where do i get to learn all this stuff?
>
>any help is welcome
>
>thanks
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
