Re: Are TW Managers Doomed?

[Candace Bamber <cbamber -at- CASTEK -dot- COM>]

I guess it all depends on how you define "doomed" and what you want out of
your
career.

If being a truly great techwriter is what you want to do, then it *would* be
a
doom to be forced to manage. I'm personally in the other camp - I want to be
the
best manager I can be (or the best whatever I'm doing - being a techwriter
isn't
a way of life for me, it's a job).

My experience with managers is that great managers are always respected by
their
staff. The team only starts to find reasons to "pass the manager off" if the
manager doesn't do a good job. Once you've decided someone is incompetent,
it's
amazing how many reasons you can find to further rationalize your
assessment!
The best manager I ever had didn't know a thing about tech writing. The
worst
manager I ever had didn't either.

I'm about to find out, I guess, whether it's possible to be taken seriously
by
staff when you don't have their technical knowledge. I am transitioning out
of
my role as doc lead and into a new role as implementation project manager.
My
new teams will consist mainly of internal and customer software developers,
analysts and architects (and writers!).

Candace

Barry wrote:
>I have seen this happen in electronics engineering. A
>good engineer gets promoted to manager and relinquishes their design
>responsibilities to concentrate on management.
>
>A year later, the engineers under his management loose respect for their
>manager's technical knowledge, passing that manager off as not being
>current.
[snip]
>Are managers doomed to never be taken seriously again as technical writers?

******************************
Candace Bamber
cbamber -at- castek -dot- com

Castek
--Putting the Future Together
******************************

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