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Dave Weisbord <<... works in a fairly large internal software development
organization for a fairly large semiconductor company. There are two tech
writers in our "group". Along with the rest of the high tech world, my
department has recently gone through some major organizational changes. Our
boss just met with us and asked us to develop a Charter for our
documentation group. Anyone have any suggestions or samples I might see?>>
If "charter" is a creative synonym for "mission statement", this exercise
often becomes a complete waste of time. I've been in this business for 15+
years, and never met anyone who could repeat their mission statement
verbatim more than a week after writing it. Moreover, unless the mission
statement is actually used to change how your company operates, the exercise
_inevitably_ becomes a complete waste of time. That being the case, my
advice is to use this opportunity to identify the problems you have at work
and figure out politically correct ways to express solutions that can
improve your working life. For example:
The problem: Nobody cares what the readers think. As a result, they buy
other products or spend hours online with our tech. support staff. Some have
been known to drive by our head office and throw tomatoes; the other day, we
received a mailbomb containing a 3-week-old dead animal--possibly a roadkill
skunk--along with our postage-paid documentation satisfaction survey.
The solution: Audience analysis and usability testing of the product and its
docs.
The wording in the charter: To proactively work with users to ensure that
our documentation meets their needs, thereby improving customer retention
and reducing support costs.
The problem: SMEs won't give you the time of day; in fact, they've each been
assigned a secretary (an ex-KGB agent)whose sole goal in life is to scan for
your e-mail or phone messages, delete them, and pretend the messages never
arrived. Secondarily, the secretary will press a panic button upon seeing
you down the hall, then will delay you long enough for the SME to hide in
the filing cabinet--inflicting grievous personal harm if you persist.
The solution: Blackmail the developers into working with you on a mutually
respectful basis.
The wording in the charter: Promote synergies in product development by
improving the integration of the development and documentation staff.
See the trick? Express the solution in terms any manager will love:
teamwork, cooperation, synergy, improved quality, and so on. Don't mention
problems, since that just triggers an atavistic instinct in the average
manager that makes said manager run screaming and hide, perhaps even getting
one of those ex-KGB secretaries. The part that drives home the point and
makes this exercise effective is when you work with the manager to actually
implement these components of the mission statement. If you don't get any
indication that they're willing to help you implement the mission, waste as
little time as possible creating one.
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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