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.
RE: Compare and Contrast Doc Group Performance -- What's a World-ClassDoc Group Look Like?
Subject:RE: Compare and Contrast Doc Group Performance -- What's a World-ClassDoc Group Look Like? From:"John Rosberg" <jrosberg -at- interwoven -dot- com> To:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:27:08 -0700
Gene -- great input, thanks -- I am using this metric -- my question,
for you, is:
What's a good benchmark for this metric. 80%? 90? 100?
If we all say we're hitting the target 100% of the time, it becomes a
little less useful as a comparator.
rosberg
-----Original Message-----
From: Gene Kim-Eng [mailto:techwr -at- genek -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 2:24 PM
To: John Rosberg; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Compare and Contrast Doc Group Performance -- What's a
World-ClassDoc Group Look Like?
Looking at it from the viewpoint of upper management,
who will almost always be non-writers, the major points
to hit are:
1. On-time completion of all projects as scheduled.
2. Meeting all project requirements (content, etc.)
3. The ability to accurately predict the time, resources
and support required to achieve 1 and 2.
My usual metric is the number of projects completed
on-time by each writer, with weighting as needed to
account for varied project complexity. My standard
response to any mention of page counts is, "Our
objective is to present all required content using the
smallest number of pages possible. Did you want
more pages?"
> We work in a software company, as part of the engineering team. Along
> with Tech Pub and other things, he is also responsible for the QA
> function. He rattled off some QA-type statistics (code coverage,
> testing
> automation, trends in bugs found/fixed) as good examples of how a QA
> team in Company X might be compared to a QA team in Company Y.
>
> I did not put the dreaded term "metrics" in the subject line - I'm not
> looking for way to track our progress against internal goals, nor our
> improvement (or otherwise) compared to our past performance. What I
> would like to be able to do is compare our performance against that of
> another, mythical, world-class software doc team.
>
> I'm sure I'm not the first person that's been so tasked, and wiggled
> out
> of tracking keystrokes per minute, typos per furlong, or doc bugs per
> release.
Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include support for Windows Vista & 2007
Microsoft Office, team authoring, plus more. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
True single source, conditional content, PDF export, modular help.
Help & Manual is the most powerful authoring tool for technical
documentation. Boost your productivity! http://www.helpandmanual.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-