atw: Re: Statistics to demonstrate value ...
- From: "Lewington, Warren J (WT)" <warren.lewington.ext@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:06:41 -0400
Suzy, you are asking the wrong people and I think you may be approaching
the angle incorrectly. The finance manager has asked "whether there is a
productivity benefit in your services to his bonus?"
Your answers and your defence needs to come from the people who benefit
from your services directly - the engineers and (probably more
importantly - the proposals and sales people). If they don't come into
bat for you, no external statistics are going to help you. Our services
are not directly tangible, and quality is never on the list of DOFs
KPIs. If you can get amabassadors in the target groups you work for,
then you will have some input there.
And this is a positive situation for you. You should have been tracking
in some kind of journal the tasks that you have performed that others
didn't. This quantifies a cost benefit analysis. Once you have
ascertained what you did for others - get them to try and quantify the
results they would have produced (in time) at the same quality output.
Your results should show absolute answers reflecting "NO I COULDN'T"
naturally. Remember (as I was reminded last week) a page of
documentation takes about 5.5 hours (an international standard). If you
can show you are creating pages well under that - where others can't,
then you have a compelling argument against economic rationalism. If you
are servicing 100 engineers, then my word, you are providing value to
your client. The survey you send out should be asking whether they could
do without you... And your answers should reflect NO WE CAN'T and don't
touch her or else... Furthermore, you should also be asking where else
you can help them, giving you a chance to make a plan for further
activity, and a resource plan to show the improvements to process and
underlying profitability you will make by implementing them - see the
positive here!
Not easy but it can be done by anyone - I know I have and still do it.
My most famous example was where an engineering manager was trying to
get me out, but I walked out of the meeting with two extra resources,
three months more work and a redundancy at the end of that. What a coup
that was.
A management paradigm is if you can't measure it you can't manage it.
Australian ones are generally lazy too. So if you give them your own
measurement metrics, then you have the power - even when they think they
have it. Go and buy "Yes Minister" DVDs for some further training in
this. That is all the knowledge you need to up-manage this type of
problem. DOFs have power, and will generally, if they have a target in
mind, get their way; it's a 'jolly' thing for them and they are often a
bit sociopathic about it. Rarely found really good ones who can see a
benefit from your measurement metrics will find resources to help. At
the end of the day, we are always targeted this way. Get over it and
prepare your resume - always be looking for the next step up - do unto
them before they do unto you...
Regards,
Warren
-----Original Message-----
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Suzy
Sent: Monday, 19 October 2009 12:24
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Statistics to demonstrate value ...
Hi writers
I'm currently having to justify my employment value; not sure if it's
possible. This might be a long email, apologies, but I'm hoping the
information and feed back will be useful to more than me.
I hope this isn't off-topic - if so, please accept my apologies and
ignore this post.
The Director of Finance has the view that 2007 is so easy to use that
the corporation shouldn't need additional Microsoft Word support.
Firstly - if you worked for a corporation with 100 engineers all
creating new technical documents, from Functional Specifications, to
System Design documents,to Tender Responses (all over 50 pages) in
Microsoft Word 1. Would you agree that they required no additional
Microsoft Word support in ensuring their documents adhered to the
corporate brand and style guide?
And if so, would you only see that support as being required for setting
up templates? Or adhering to the style guide?
And would you believe that these document authors would necessarily have
the Word skills to format in accordance with the style guide.
(Note: These authors do not have time to attend training, or glance at
the style guide).
At the risk of opening up World War III, I have been making the point
that Microsoft Word in any version is flawed as a long document tool.
Yes, 2007 is easier to use than earlier versions (for new users and once
you get used to it for other Version
users) for creating short documents, but I personally see the same
problems in long documents that I have seen from unskilled Word
authors/formatters in earlier versions.
From what I have seen, those who don't find Word a problem for large
documents, usually work with a conservative template structure, for
example, it utilises tables to keep the paragraphs aligned, and does not
require the author to understand correct style usage to create a
consistently formatted document. And the documents have a standard
structure that doesn't require or allow for added sections etc. It's
conservative and does the job, but doesn't necessarily look like it has
been formatted by a professional (desktop publisher).
Please feel free to let me if you agree or disagree with my assumption.
I haven't worked in a wide range of organisations over the last couple
of years and things may have changed as 2007 has become more widely
used.
Would be very happy to hear your views on that!
I was wondering if someone on this list knew where I could find some
technical writing statistics, or if as I suspect they are not published,
if people on this list would like to respond with their experience, I
will collate and forward back to the list. If you want other categories
added in, let me know I'll add them in and re-send. As you can see,
Statistical analysis is not really my area of specialty.
Appreciate any feedback. The role I am in is a Senior Technical Writing
role, which is more of a Documentation Management role; I don't do a lot
of writing, but I assist others in improving their content, develop
content libraries, and setup templates and provide VBA tools to assist
authors with more complex Word tasks, such as Insert Landscape pages.
It falls to me to ensure documentation standards are kept, I provide
templatea nd formatting support to around 100 engineers. The role has
very little requirement for online Help authoring, and a lot to do with
Proposals and Delivery documentation.
It would be good to know even what percentage of the Technical Writing
community have over 5 years experience as start.
Do you have over 5 years experience?
Your Answer:
For those who do have over 5 years experience, things I need to know
are:
- % who use Microsoft Word vs Other tools for the majority (over
75%) of their authoring work
Do you? Your Answer:
Of those who use Word in their authoring work:
- % who are IT technical vs IT procedural vs Other technical vs Other
prodedural vs Other Is your experience in one or more of these
categories, and which?
Your Answer:
- % who have proposal/tender response experience (over 5 years) Do you?
Your Answer:
- % who have IT system documentation experience (over 5 years) Do you?
Your Answer:
- % who have technical copyrighting experience (over 5 years) Do you?
Your Answer:
- % who have experience in more than one category of proposal writing
experience, system documentation and technical copyrighting experience.
Which categories? Your Answer:
- % who have template design and build experience for technical
documentation in a large corporation as well as corporate documentation
(ie letters, fax covers, forms etc) (over 3 years) Do you? Your Answer:
- % who have Word VBA macro development experience.
Do you? And at what level -Beginner, Moderate or Advanced. Your
Answer:
Any help would be appreciate, whether you know of similar studies etc
would be great. I realise this might be a big ask - but if so, just
ignore. It's voluntary!
thanks in advance!
regards
Suzy
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