Re: On the value of technical communication (long)

[Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>]

Gene Kim-Eng wrote:
> I would concentrate the most effort on the risk.  When it comes to
> "value added," organizations and management fall into two camps:
> those who see documents as an integral part of product and those
> that do not, and those that do not will not change their view until
> the risk blows up in their face.

Will they actually change their views, and decide to integrate technical 
writing into the effort, or will they seek out someone to blame for the 
catastrophe? Will they modify their risk strategy and look to design a 
properly written set of documents, or will they want some kind of patch 
thrown together in two weeks at minimum cost?

If they do embark on a revised but even bigger replacement project (with 
integrated documentation teams) for which the design is conceptually 
flawed, will they blame the project's failure on the technical writer 
who discovers and points out the flaw?

Will any of these folks ever see any need for further technical writing 
at all? What am I doing staying in this business?
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