TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Another question I've had for years... From:Seth Johnson <seth -dot- johnson -at- RealMeasures -dot- dyndns -dot- org> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sat, 18 Sep 2004 13:38:13 -0400
I did a whole process of surveying external operational
representatives (starting with COOs) and information technology
representatives (starting with CIOs) of health care providers
throughout a managed care firm's network. By conducting a "root
cause analysis," essentially encouraging them to identify root
causes for defects in the categories of people, process, tools
and materials, I was able to build a comprehensive data store of
their internal information producing processes. This was as a
part of a method of facilitating "continuous quality
improvement."
Seth Johnson
Tony Markos wrote:
>
> But I have found that, more often than not, the main
> underlying issue is that I am trying to solicit
> essential procedural information, causing me to have
> to face one of two possible problems:
>
> 1.) Knowledge of essential procedure is turf (i.e.,
> power), and people (SME's) will defend "their" turf to
> the death.
>
> 2.) Lack of knowledge of essential procedure clearly
> demonstrates incompetence; and therefore, people
> strongly avoid saying anything that will reveal lack
> of such knowledge.
>
> In both situations, developing trust is the best
> long-term solution. If that don't work, and for the
> short-term, I use data flow diagrams to rigorously
> define what procedural related questions I need to
> ask, and to enforce that conversations with the SME
> stay on track (i.e., guard against purposeful attempts
> to baffle me).
I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or
distribution of this incidentally recorded communication.
Original authorship should be attributed reasonably, but only so
far as such an expectation might hold for usual practice in
ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of
exclusive rights.
ROBOHELP X5: Featuring Word 2003 support, Content Management, Multi-Author
support, PDF and XML support and much more!
TRY IT TODAY at http://www.macromedia.com/go/techwrl
WEBWORKS FINALDRAFT: New! Document review system for Word and FrameMaker
authors. Automatic browser-based drafts with unlimited reviewers. Full
online discussions -- no Web server needed! http://www.webworks.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
