Re: Handling the anti-team situation

Subject: Re: Handling the anti-team situation
From: Janice Gelb <janiceg -at- marvin -dot- eng -dot- sun -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 10:19:37 -0700 (PDT)

In article 9A4B2157EFDBE546BECD68C62AC3B1C8A6742C -at- es05snlnt, lkchris -at- sandia -dot- gov ("Christensen, Kent") writes:
>re: The problem occurred when a new manager took over the company's newest,
>most technologically advanced product. This manager is very firm about
>creating a team environment within his product. To that end, he requested
>that the new technical writer be removed from the technical communications
>department and placed solely within his product group.
>
>Well, I, too, favor the decentralization of tech writers and feel it a bit
>pre-judgemental to label this notion "anti-team." A good tech writer will
>indeed find others at the company (even at TECHWR-L) for peer review and
>other questions, and there certainly can be company-wide standards without
>there being a centralized organization of tech writers.
>

I fail to see why writers should be expected to have to resort
to asking outside sources how to do their job. TECHWR-L is a
wonderful resource, but it's not going to be able to answer
questions like "Where are our documentation templates located
on the server?"

>
>In addition, it's good for tech writers to "understand the personalites" of
>techie types, I think, and at least where I am, decentralization and "doing
>it ourself" is a commonly practiced approach. Generally speaking, the
>techies will resist your bureauracy and paying for the overhead of a
>centralized tech writing department--the techies will see for sure as
>"overhead" the cost of the department manager and costs of things like
>"planning for the future--new technologies, new roles," etc. Clearly the
>customers have to see your overhead as value and not as entitlement.
>

A documentation department can provide writing resources
and advice, and peer and management support (especially in
cases where a development team wants to push a deadline that
is impossible for documentation). It also can provide
centralized services such as graphic design and editing
that may make less sense on a project-by-project basis. On
a company-wide basis, having a common pool of writers
and editors can often make more sense, as a project can
only pay for, say, half a writer if that's all they need,
and writing resources can be moved as priorities dictate.

A writer can be integrated with a development team by going to
its product meetings and working with its engineers. I have
worked in companies that are set up this way and the writer
was definitely considered part of the team even if he or she
didn't officially report to the development manager. There's
no reason why a writer should have to report to the
development team's manager in order to feel part of the team.



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