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Mike Stockman wrote:
>
> On 11/30/00 5:24 PM, Ziech, Karen L (Karen) (karenziech -at- lucent -dot- com) wrote:
>
> >Has anyone created a list of core skills for technical communicators?
>
> I only know of two:
>
> 1) Write well
>
> 2) Learn really, really fast
>
> If you can do both of these things, you can be a great technical
> communicator. Without either, I'm skeptical.
I agree with the above list as the only absolute requirements to be able
to do good work in the field. Given those, there will be some technical
writing assignments you can do well.
However:
Methinks particular assignments will nearly always have additional requirements.
The above are almost never enough to do any particular assignment well.
For example, suppose the assignment is to document some piece of software
your company is writing for, say, corporate accountants. To do this well,
you need at least a basic understanding of:
accounting problems and how accountants describe and deal with them
software issues and your company's development techniques
Yes, you can (almost inevitably, will) learn some both as you go, but
you need enough background in both areas to do so quickly.
and also:
I think you need an interest in, or at least willingness to learn about,
aspects of the documentation problem that go far beyond merely writing
well. Indexing, documentation structure beyond the level of just doing
an outline, visual aspects of presentation, usability testing, ...
Then there are a whole set of issues around process and team interaction.
How do you
acquire info, and maintain the relationships with SMEs?
get reviews and signoffs done?
plan for document changes?
budget time and resources?
deal with product deficiencies or design questions
that come up when you're documenting?
...
In some situations, you can leave most of these to doc group management.
However, that isn't always the case, and even when it is, you'll still
have your part to do.
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