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Subject:RE: Ideal department From:"Adrianne L. Sessions" <asessions -at- oxmol -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Tue, 25 Jul 2000 11:54:29 -0400
...My question is two-fold. 1) If anyone is in a similarly structured
company, what is your ideal department? And why? 2) How did/would you
convince senior management that changing
departments is a good idea.
Thanks for your help!
----------------------------------
Teresa,
My writing group was in the wrong department for 2 years. About 8 months ago
we were switched to the Development group. We were formerly a part of the
Product Support group. Life is very different for us now.
-- we are included in the development meetings,
-- when the developers get a schedule, we get one,
-- when the deadline slips, we know immediately,
-- when the developers pump out new versions of software, we get the new
versions also,
-- if I have a problem with one or more of the developers, I can go to the
(our) boss (Director of Development). He has to do something about it
because he is now responsible for documentation...and that's the bottom
line. If my documentation is late, his product is late and he can't blame it
on anyone else.