Re: Strong process creating a writer?

["Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- RAYCOMM -dot- COM>]

At 06:24 AM 11/10/98 -0700, Geoff Hart wrote:
>Nothing else is necessary. A supportive, mentoring environment can
>certainly make the job easier, and an unsupportive, confusing,
>hostile environment can certainly make the job harder, but it's the
>person that makes all the difference in the world.

Taking this one step further--can a bad process (bad
in terms of overly prescribed, unworkable, or impractical,
as well as bad in terms of a complete lack of process, resulting
in flailing and floundering) destroy a tech writer with
potential? I'm not necessarily talking about driving people
with good potential out of the profession, although
that's an issue in any less-than-ideal environment.

I'm really thinking more of instilling bad habits,
"this way is the only way" attitudes, non-audience
orientation (as Simon alluded to), or other similar
factors. Would these have potential to make a
tech writer who survived in this kind of a bad environment
a problem in other environments?

Tim and others who follow rigidly prescribed processes
(internal, Info Mapping, Hackos by the book,
whatever), do you have any insight to this?

I've rarely been involved with a non-dysfunctional
company with a mature publications process, so
my experience isn't necessarily typical, but I've
found that adaptability is key to being a good
tech writer, and an *over*reliance on a specific
process could prove a disadvantage. (Note that
I'm not saying that processes are bad and anarchy
should rule, but it's possible to go too far.)

Eric



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Eric J. Ray    RayComm, Inc.
http://www.raycomm.com/      ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com

*Award-winning author of several popular computer books
*Syndicated columnist: Rays on Computing
*Technology Department Editor, _Technical Communication_


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