atw: Re: I'm going into a documentation management role
- From: "Christine Kent" <cmkentau@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:07:27 +1000
Yes, sounds like a great role - which all too often don't go to the TW, so
congratulations - plenty of scope for creativity and finding novel
solutions. a great opportunity for you.
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kate Macumber
Sent: Tuesday, 19 July 2011 8:05 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: I'm going into a documentation management role
I think with Word templates, I'd be going with the KISS principle...
Having said that, I believe I will have control over the external and more
important documentation, but the internal documentation will be written by
those people who use processes, procedures and so forth - these may be in
Word, but they also have internal documentation tools (?) that I believe
they will be using.
However this role is broader than just getting people to write documentation
in Word or similar. It's about managing and documenting company knowledge,
making that knowledge/documentation accessible (SharePoint, Intranet,
Internet, changing the format (online help, etc) to make the documentation
accessible...), managing versions, finding situations in which people's
knowledge isn't documented (finding gaps) and getting documentation written
to fill those gaps, etc, etc.
Kate.
On 19 July 2011 10:32, Christine Kent <cmkentau@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Gulp. Do you mean, you have to get everyone who uses Word as a secondary
tool of trade rather than primary, to use it properly? I might be jumping to
conclusions that this is a subset of your role, but if it is, here are your
three options - just for this tinsy winsy subset of your role of course:
. the KISS option of making very simple clean tidy templates and
praying. Prayers are not often answered.
. the SUZY path, which is to design hugely complex templates with
all manner of controls to try to force people to produce nice documents.
This path also fails. Even totally incompetent users HATE to be controlled
and so will destroy all your work as soon as your back is turned.
. the common sense option, which is to produce nice simple templates
as in the KISS option and then to train everyone to use them properly, which
of course, an organisation will never do. Let me know if you need a trainer!
Ah, how nice to be out of all that!
Christine
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kate Macumber
Sent: Tuesday, 19 July 2011 7:04 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: I'm going into a documentation management role
Hi All,
I have accepted a job as a documentation manager (i.e. managing all of the
internal/external documentation in an organisation and getting others - not
technical writers - to write that documentation).
Everyone seems to think that I can do it (my current boss, the interviewers,
colleagues), but having worked as a software/hardware technical writer for
the past 15 years, this is a very different role for me.
As such, I was wondering if any of you has done this before and whether you
can provide me with any pointers / useful resources.
Thanks for your help,
Kate.
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