Re: IT Department Coverage Question

["Kat Nagel" <kat_nagel -at- rte -dot- com>]

Chiming in late on this one, as I catch up with neglected digests...

----- Original Message -----
From: <tvirostko -at- familydollar -dot- com>
> Do you go with the development team? Do you cover the
> production team supporting developed programs? Are you in an
special area
> covering all of it.

Yes <g>.

I am the lone techwriter for a custom software development company
with 55 employees/38 engineers.  Officially, I'm part of the Office
of Quality (GREAT place to be), but I also function as part of most
project teams as Doc Geek and QA rep.

I'm responsible for everything from proposals to requirements specs
to system development documentation to user manuals to web stuff.  I
also handle internal documentation like Quality manuals, user guides
for the network, and intranet stuff.  Online help will be added to
the mix as soon as I learn enough RoboHelp to be useful instead of
dangerous.  (Hint: one workshop at an STC conference and a couple of
afternoons reading manuals does NOT bring one out of the 'dangerous'
category.)

Since I'm new, I've got a lot of last-minute 'jump in and fix this
by tomorrow without any background' projects.  For new projects, I
start out as part of the development team from the get-go.  For
day-to-day direction on each project, I report to the project leads,
but I set my own schedule and priorities.  When all the project
leads scream "Mine NOW!" and I need management clout to enforce
those priorities, the Quality manager steps in.

Clearly, there's more to do than one person can comfortably handle.
Since it will be quite a while before the budget is available for
another fulltime writer (they're paying me a bit more than they
budgeted for the position <smile>), we're handling the overflow in
several ways:

1. I'm doing all the stuff that requires template design or process
decisions or educating new developers on techcomm functions.

2. Some revisions of existing user manuals for external projects are
being farmed out to a contractor and reviewed by the project leads.

3. Some revisions of existing development docs for external projects
are being handled by the appropriate developers.  I do final reviews
on these.

4. Internal docs are on hold until I get new templates designed and
a documentation process worked out and...er...documented.

Hope this helps,