Re: Convincing management of the value of documentation?

[NuVision Communications <nuvisioncomm -at- gmail -dot- com>]

While I agree that it's often difficult to change perceptions about value
of documentation or any positions, there may not be many open positions for
Keith to jump into.

Probably the best way to show value is to take on the project, and document
how much the company is saving/will save (staff time and $$) and improve
productivity by eliminating trainings and questions that could be easily
answered with a manual. I assume the same savings could be applied to other
software documentation, so estimating those savings could definitely
support your goal.

That's just what it comes down to these days.

Deb



>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Purtell
> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 12:53 AM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Convincing management of the value of documentation?
>
> I've been working for several months at a digital publishing company.
> Most of my job deals with PDF-to-image conversion for magazine
> publishers. A month into the job, the production manager took me aside
> and said he tries to give people opportunities to advance based on their
> talents. He pointed out that we're working at an IT company where no one
> has ever written documentation on any of our proprietary in-house
> software or systems. (I formerly wrote documentation for Sprint.) As
> things stand, every time someone new is hired, an existing employee has
> to drop what he's doing and spend more than a week training the new
> person. The production manager asked me to start work on some of our
> core procedures and said this would give me a chance to be promoted.
>
> However, our CEO has an odd attitude about staff's skills and their
> value. He pays most of us less than other IT companies in the city. He
> once stated that our job was so easy that "a ninth-grader could do it."
> He's sending one co-worker to Germany just to learn about a proposed new
> intranet system, but he doesn't want to pay people like me any more
> money. Are there references I can use to illustrate for him why a
> documentation manager is worth the investment?
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Debbie M.
*NuVision Communications*
nuvisioncomm -at- gmail -dot- com

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Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help. Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need.

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