TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I'm hoping that some of you out there might be able to provide me with some suggestions!
I work in a software development environment, and my department is establishing ways to
collect metrics for our 2-person documenation group. We want to establish the goals
now (called Key Results Expected), and use them to dermine if we made our goals
at the end of the year (called Acutal Results Achieved). I guess meeting deadlines isn't
quite enough ;)! Nor are the customer satisfaction surveys (which don't apply in
the KRE/ARA methodology).
The past year we've used this same process, but management wants to see more measurable
tasks.
Since one of the methods they intend to "measure" developers by is how many lines of
code written (which has been proven to be an ineffective way to measure a developer's
productivity), it's been suggested to track the number of pages written per application.
I'm not very comfortable with this suggestion: 1) we may need to use more graphics/notes/etc.
to document one document or another and 2) we are now producing online docs in HTML - "pages"
don't really apply.
What do you think about this method? What methods do you use to determine your growth? How
do you know if your group or dept. is "improving" in how they are doing things as well as
how long it takes to do those things? What do you use to benchmark your success?
TIA for your help!
Hope
=============================================
Hope Creskoff hcreskof -at- harris -dot- com
Harris Corporation Phone: 407-724-3205
Network Products & Services, MS 75 Fax: 407-724-3627
1025 W NASA Blvd
Melbourne, FL 32919 http://www.hnm.harris.com/
Melbourne Art Festival 4/25 & 26/1998 http://www.melbournearts.org/
TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
