Re: Client woes: a question to ask yourself...
Charles E Vermette wrote:
Bruce Byfield wrote:
<<<why do most technical writing programs almost entirely ignore the
business aspects?>>>
Because business savvy is more art than science, and I'm not sure how
much of it can be taught. Sure, you can teach someone about W2 versus
1099, or how to use Quicken, but you can't teach someone when to start
talking money in a client meeting.
True, but you could say the same thing about tech-writing and several dozen other subjects. About the best you can do is forewarn people of the various possibilities. An imaginative teacher could even set up a series of role-playing games to hammer home some of the difficulties students would face in negotiation - the exercise wouldn't totally prepare students, but they would at least go away with some sense of what to expect.
Of course, preparing this sort of exercise would require imagination, to say nothing of time and energy. So, you're not likely to see it - speaking as an ex-teacher, I can assure you that, when you have one of these traits peaking, the others are generally in decline.
The Interactive Multimedia program from which I graduated in May took an interesting tactic to address this very issue: each semester, we worked in a different group on a client project. These were real clients and real projects. As students, we were involved right from the initial meeting. Although the program coordinators handled the actual financial discussions, we were able to observe. Once that initial dance was done, the student teams managed the clients for the rest of the projects, with occasional assistance (or interference) from the coordinators.
While I disagreed with some of what the coordinators taught in the Project Management classes, the client projects were a great way to learn how to handle large-scale multimedia projects (which aren't very different from large-scale documentation projects, no matter what the program coordinators say). And some of the clients projects did have problems, partly due to the inexperience of the students on the various teams, and partly due to mismanagement by the program coordinators.
Yes, it's more art than science. Yes, the best way to learn is through hands-on experience. But that experience can be incorporated into a teaching situation.
Win
----------------
Win Day
Multimedia Developer
http://www.wordsplus.net
mailto:winday -at- wordsplus -dot- net
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References:
Re: Client woes: a question to ask yourself...: From: Charles E Vermette
Re: Client woes: a question to ask yourself...: From: Bruce Byfield
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