Re: bad leadership and tech writing

[Sabahat Ashraf <sabahat -at- viragelogic -dot- com>]

Without disagreeing much with anybody else and to develop on what Susan
Said, er, Sue G. said and expand on what Kim was saying:

I have worked both with organizations where Doc was centralized and in
ones where it was decentralized -- even within the same Corporation. I
have always looked at it as a Lifecycle issue. And I mean the lifecycle
of the corporation. For very small [start-up, for example] situations,
it makes sense for the TW'er to report into Engineering -- there usually
*is* no TW manager to report to and if you have the ear of a strong
manager -- or better, still, a Director or VP -- it really helps. Then,
at a certain size, you simply must have a doc group. Then, in very large
corporations, the case can be made that a separate Doc Organization --
like Sales or Marketing or even Engineering -- would be too unwieldly or
would get too far removed from the real needs of the specific Business
Units or Divisions. I am not saying I buy that in all cases, but there
is an argument to be made. And yes, like most other things in life,
mileage will vary in different specific situations.

Like some other functions, Doc/TW'ing/IP [Information Products] really
*can* be structured either way. And there are benefits and disadvantages
to both. One benefit of the decentralized model is--if you manage to
build it and a lot of that has to do with the rest of the team being
amenable to it--a closer relationship and bonding with management and
SMEs [subject matter experts]. One can sometimes get a better hearing
and better and more access to both information you need to write your
stuff and goodies, er, I mean resources if one's Cost Center manager is
the guy you spend most of the day with. And so on. On the other hand a
Tech Writer manager will have a better feel for your pain... And so on.
And the flip side can also be true. You can get TW managers that take
the "I dealt with it when I was in the trenches; so can you." and you
can get Engineering managers that are NFC [have no clue] about your
needs.

However, for Doc to have no say in how their own organization is
structured sucks. And once one is thrown into a situation like that, I
think what Sue alluded to and Kim described is the best way deal with
it. Form informal links, SIGs, and committees -- or even a lunch group.
And the whole "Dotted Line" structures also come into play. Increasingly
[and one could wax philosophical about this being a product of the
Internet Age] one could have one Cost Center manager and be "dotted
line" to another manager. [Meaning there's a dotted line from you to the
other manager on an org. chart somewhere.] That way you can get the best
-- and/or worst -- of having an SME manager *and* a Tech Writing Manager
"take care of your needs". Or make you life hell, of course, but again,
that depends on the situation, individuals, humidity levels, and so on.

A semi-formal committe of Doc Managers that supported separate Business
Units and a "lower" semi-formal committee of "Tech Writing Leads" to do
the heavy lifting was how one major corporation I worked for handled it.
And it worked fine in terms of look, feel, templates, styles and
suchlike being uniform across the corporation -- one of the things one
can go to The People On High and whine about as something that suffers
in the decentralized mode. In that case, we had one person who was a
dedicated resource for supporting the various Doc groups with logistics,
tools, etc. And we had a Tsar/Serf of Templates, but that's another
story.  [No, not *that* kind of story! He was a guy with a very good
sense of humor and was fun to work with. The Tsar/Serf title, for
example, depended on whether he was bestowing a new Template upon us
riffraff or had just screwed something up.]

And feel free to discuss this with/vent to/argue with/scream at me
offline. It's one of my favorite TW'ing Process discussions. Call me if
you want/have to.

Sabahat.

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