Re: Non-TW managers

["Russ, Kerri" <KRuss -at- QRS -dot- COM>]

Christa,

I'm one of three TWs and we report to the Education Manager in our
Marketing Department.  One of the three of us is the Senior (lead) and
it's her job to organize our projects, manage a few projects on her own,
attend meeting with Product Managers and the like, problem-solve with
us, etc., but all three of us report directly to the Edu Manager.

Yes, the size of our group is directly related to the reporting issue.
We report to a Marketing Manager rather than R&D because 1) they wanted
to ensure the materials produced by the TW staff were understandable to
the general public and jargon-free as much as possible and 2) after the
last non-TW manager we reported to left the company, the Education
Manager got us by default.

I don't believe our visibility or credibility is jeopardized in any
way... we speak out and attend meetings frequently enough and we have a
number of internal, non-product related projects with other departments,
so everyone knows us and depends on us.

An issue endemic to our situation is that our manager doesn't know what
we do and is too busy educating customers and traveling to learn what we
do.  She asks questions about our projects but sometimes has problems
understanding how long it takes to get some of the complex things done.
She wants us to cut down on project for other departments and do more
education-related materials for her... we feel we should do
documentation for other departments (like a duties helpfile for other
departments... internal KBs of a sort) because we all work for the same
team in the end and this would help make the company, in general,
stronger in terms of reducing training for new staff, especially in our
Customer Support department.

Our best advocate is our Sr. TW and we never realized this more than we
do now that she's out on medical leave.  If we could make our directly
report our Sr. TW, we'd do it in a second.  Of course, personalities
have quite a bit to do with our situation... your results may vary.

BTW, I'm a newbie and I love this place!!  So much good feedback and
information!

Our plates are presently very full (four product documentation projects,
product demos, developing a knowledge base for both internal staff and
external customers, cleaning up previous projects, getting some training
on new tools, create conference materials and brochures, researching
"web"ing our helpfiles, and I'm developing a database for our projects).
Do other TWs do such a wide variety of projects at their own companies?

Kerri Russ
Technical Writer
QRS Corporation
kruss -at- qrs -dot- com




> ----------
> From:         Hutchings, Christa[SMTP:cwhutchings -at- HOMEWIRELESS -dot- COM]
> Sent:         Tuesday, July 14, 1998 10:05 AM
> Subject:      Non-TW managers
>
> Hi all -
>
> The discussion on growing a department has started me wondering about
> something.
>
> How many of you work in Tech Pubs groups that do not have an internal
> manager? That is, your first level manager is outside of the TW group
> (a
> Product Manager, Tech Support Manager, Manager of Engineering
> Services,
> Marketing Manager, etc.). If so, do you have a team leader, or does
> each
> writer report individually to the outside manager? Does the size of
> your
> Tech Pubs group have anything to do with this? Are there many TW
> groups
> with more than, say, 2-3 writers that report individually to an
> outside
> manager? What are the pitfalls of such a scenario? Is the visibility
> and/or credibility of your group affected in any way? Do you feel that
> your outside manager understands your needs and concerns and is a
> reliable advocate for your group?
>
> We will probably be growing here before too long, and are wondering if
> we should put a management/team leader structure in place internally.
>
> TIA -
>
> Chris Welch-Hutchings
> Senior Technical Writer
> Home Wireless Networks, Inc.
> mailto:cwhutchings -at- homewireless -dot- com
>