Re: The Holy Wars -- LAME!

Subject: Re: The Holy Wars -- LAME!
From: DURL <durl -at- BUFFNET -dot- NET>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 09:58:26 -0500

I think you did the right thing. IMO, one of the chief benefits of
a consultant is that the consultant is in a position to facilitate
communication of all sorts in an organization. Also, the consultant can
take a side and enable mgmt to say "the consultant said"--thus preserving
employee morale.
For exactly these reasons, you may not have done the *smart*
thing--at least in terms of your future with the company. When Word
doesn't work for something, it will be your fault. and if the Frame
fanatic gets promoted...!

Mary

Mary Durlak Erie Documentation Inc.
East Aurora, New York (near Buffalo)
durl -at- buffnet -dot- net

On Wed, 7 Jan 1998, Andrew Plato wrote:

> You know, I am getting a little tired of the tech writer holy wars. I have
> one that just started at a client's site. It is a Word/Frame war and it is
> really pathetic. Both are good tools -- but to stake your entire career
> around one tool. Sheesh, how lame can you be?
>
> At this client site, they decided to standardize to Word. All of the
> engineers, marketing people, etc. used Word for all the internal docs so it
> seemed natural to do everything in Word. Since they produce pretty simple
> documentation and help files, I thought it was a good idea and started
> helping them design some templates and such. Word is a pretty good tool.
> Frame is too. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. For this company,
> Word seemed like a good choice. They were not doing really large documents
> and needed portability between other departments (which know nothing about
> Frame).
>
> Then this one lazy, worthless jerk who works there got his panties in an
> enormous bunch because he will ONLY use Frame. You can imagine what
> happened next. The sides squared off and here I was, the lone consultant
> stuck in the middle while these morons spent countless afternoons debating
> and NOT WORKING.
>
> So I went to the upper management and, in my best consulting voice, told
> them they had a full scale insurrection happening with the tech pubs
> department. Naturally, the big guys asked for my opinion.
>
> I told them to lay down the law and make it final: that the company had made
> a business decision to standardize to one tool and one platform. I told
> them that this decision was made on both technological and economic factors.
> That the inconvenience of converting to a single tool was minor in
> comparison to the benefits. I also warned them that the Fundie-Framers
> would seethe and they would probably rebel with bad productivity.
>
> Then I gave my regular line about technology holy wars: holy wars are
> destructive to an organization. They cause people to waste time on useless
> debating and arguing. Moreover, a holy warn can divide a team and cause
> miscommunication and resentment. This leads to bad products and lost
> profits. My suggestion was to deal with the instigators very sternly. The
> company must make it clear that the personal opinions regarding technology,
> however well supported, are to be kept personal once a decision is made.
> That personal preferences about technology and tools will be met when
> appropriate, but the first priority was producing good documents and good
> products. I also suggested that they keep the most vocal opponents in
> positions where they have little authority.
>
> The company seems to be following what I suggested. They had a long talk
> with that one guy who was driving me nuts. I think they sort of laid it on
> the line with him -- either play ball or strike out. Ha has kind of quieted
> down ever since the talk.
>
> Sheesh, when is this dipstick going to learn that tools do not produce good
> documentation -- good writers do. A good writer can produce useful
> documents with any tool.
>
> Well, what do you think? Did I do the right thing by telling the mangers to
> crush the holy war people? I feel kind of icky about being the guy who told
> them to reprimand these people. I feel like a nark.
>
> But, I also think that the holy war crap is really, really lame. Come on,
> are we professionals or are we cult members?
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Andrew Plato
> Owner / Principal Consultant
> Anitian Technology Services
> www.anitian.com
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>
>
>




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