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Subject:Demonstrating Tech Comm's Value From:"George F. Hayhoe" <george -at- GHAYHOE -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 20 Jun 1997 10:20:48 -0400
I think Jennifer Gealsen's posting can be summarized as "How do
we change our organizations so that they value us and our work?"
One way that always works (unless your managers really DO have
pointy hair) is to very obviously demonstrate your value in
dollars and cents (or in components of the currency of your
choice).
Let me give you a fer instance:
In my last job, my team looked at where the organization was
putting its documentation dollars. Nearly 15% of our
documentation resources were dedicated to maintaining the
documentation for a human resources package the company had
installed 5 years before. Because the vendor-supplied
documentation and the user interface for this product were so
awful, the expected documentation cost for this product was
significantly larger than needed (we compared the documentation
hours per function point for this product to the average for
other products, and it was WAY bigger).
We also knew the information systems organization was being
pressured to "buy not build," so the chances of becoming saddled
with similarly ill-designed and -documented products in the
future were great.
We were thus able to show management how much a review of
interface design and documentation conducted by our team would
save them per function point of code they bought if such a
review were built into the procurement process. (FPs are a way
of measuring the size of computer programs, by the way, and our
management based most of their tactical decisions on comparative
function point statistics.)
Our manager's response? "We'd be foolish not to take you up on
it."
--George Hayhoe (george -at- ghayhoe -dot- com)
George Hayhoe Associates
Voice: +1 803-642-2156
Fax: +1 803-642-9325
Award-winning Web site: http://www.ghayhoe.com
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