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I've been in both situations: reporting to an engineering manager and
having a tech pubs department.
I found that having a tech pubs department with a manager to be by far
the better situation if for no other reason than the bitch-and-moan
sessions held among people who cared... about fonts, style guides, etc.
(All the things that I don't care about and where I can defer to
others.) Even when there was a tech pubs department, we were assigned to
projects that had engineering managers/leads who we quasi-reported to.
I can think of several advantages to a tech pubs department:
- Whenever an engineering manager wanted something that deviated
substantially from what we've been doing in the past, the tech pubs
department provided some sanity and consistency. Was it pie-in-the-sky?
Or, is it well within the realm of reason that we should consider
implementing across the board in what we produce?
- Whenever an engineering manager didn't know what they wanted, the tech
pubs department again provided sanity and ideas.
- If we had problems that we couldn't resolve, the tech pubs department
provided another channel, another resource, and another means of
escalating a resolution.
- Whenever I reported to an engineering manager (as opposed to a tech
pubs manager), I found my quality time with them cut short by the
admittedly larger fires of the development process. I always got the
short end of the stick even if I purposely stayed after hours in the
hopes of getting some undivided attention at the end of the day.
I don't want to give the impression that I'm a whiner and complainer.
Quite the contrary, I consider myself optimistic and a doer. Yet we all
know, don't count your chickens before they're hatched... or before the
P.O. is signed off. The sign-off requires justification; justification
requires face-time just to present the case. Sometimes, I'm not even at
the point where a tool can be selected; I just need a sounding board.
I find that when I only report to an engineering manager, I'm
short-changed. Meetings with me are the first to be canceled if any
other issue arises in development. Drop-in meetings are rare.
Cell-phones or regular phones interrupt. The scheduled time is always
short. And the attention span and interest in the details of what I'm
doing was short at best.
Also, let's not forget employee evaluations. A tech pubs manager
evaluates me about what I've accomplished in the realm of technical
writing and against my tech writing peers. An engineering manager
evaluates me about my piece in the project and against the other members
of the project team where the code warriors are always on the fast track
for praise, promotion, and bonuses just from the very nature of what
they do.
Assigning tech writers to various engineering managers for projects is a
good idea, but this does not replace having a tech pubs department with
its own manager.
Other reasons for a tech pubs group instead of reporting to engineering
managers have to do with scheduling and efficient use of resources. A
tech pubs manager might be able to juggle resources onto a project at a
critical point, whereas all sorts of political turf must be crossed to
accomplish the same when each engineering manager has their own
pfeifdom. Also, tech writers with specific interests and talents can be
leveraged to their strengths across projects.
My longest stint at any one employer was 3.5 years. Admittedly, that
employer was on the disfunctional side that had a revolving door in
terms of employees. I was an old-timer after a year. I was able to stay
as long as I did precisely because we had a tech pubs manager who
buffered us from the B.S. happening elsewhere in the company.
I stayed at my last employer only 14 months. We didn't have a tech pubs
manager (and could have used one, because ours was the most
disfunctional group.) We reported to the director of engineering who was
essentially performing the duties of CEO (and was later officially named
CEO.) It meant that he was rarely in-house, much less in his office. He
received 30-70 e-mails daily. Even e-mails from us marked urgent were
lower priorities than the other 7 urgent e-mails.
What made it worse than a "seagull manager" (ala a manager who flies in,
makes a lot of noise, craps over everything, then flies away) was the
Germanic nature of the company, whereby co-workers individually or
collectively would not stand-up and oppose any decision coming from
above. Regardless of how well or poorly thought-out the decision, "it's
what the boss stated, so it's what we do." Even when up and down the
food chain everybody -- including the manager -- was in agreement about
a decision being wrong, there was still a reluctance to bite-the-bullet
and change course once it "appeared" that some edict has come down from
on high.
Glenn Maxey
Voyant Technologies, Inc.
Tel. +1 303.223.5164
Fax. +1 303.223.5275
glenn -dot- maxey -at- voyanttech -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: julie brodeur [mailto:jool -at- petting-zoo -dot- net]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2001 7:43 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: tech pubs organizational question
>
>
> hi, are there any pros/cons to having each tech writer in an
> organization report to an engineering manager,
> instead of having a tech pubs department?
>
> i can think of more pros than cons, but i've never acutally
> worked for an engineering manager before.
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