FW: Looking for information

["Tom Whitlam" <whitlam -at- pacific -dot- net -dot- sg>]

<snip>I have been assigned the task of putting together a
proposal for the reorganization of the technical writing department
where I work.</snip>

Hi Bonita,

Not knowing the present organization of your department makes it a little
difficult to make specific suggestions; however, in my experience there are
two major organization structures that work, either of which you could
consider as a model for your department:

1) "The Microsoft Structure": large teams of narrow specialists, for
example, a team of seven people: a usability specialist, a designer, a
writer, a formatter, an editor, an indexer and a project manager; all work
together on the same product.
Advantages: Quick time-to-market; high quality.
Disadvantage: Expensive; high number of hours per page (e.g., 8 to 10 hours
per page).

2) "The HP Structure": highly qualified generalists are responsible for all
aspects of a specific product; for example, one person wears all the hats
of: usability specialist, designer, writer, formatter, editor, indexer and
project manager.
Advantages: less expensive, lower number of hours per page (e.g., 4 to 5
hours per page); high quality.
Disadvantages: requires a long lead time for development, requires highly
skilled generalists to do the work.

In my experience, most departments are some kind of mixture of the above
"pure" forms; usually trading off product quality for time-to-market. You
need to assess the critical goals of your organization, both short-term and
long-term, and see what makes sense.

Cheers,

Tom Whitlam
Information Designer
Whitlam TechComm
whitlam -at- pacific -dot- net -dot- sg