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An interesting discussion, and a good sidelight to the "where do writers
belong" thread that I thought of after writing my response.
I fear that Doug's approach, while providing a chance to say, "See, I was
right," may do more harm to both the writer and the company than the ego
satisfaction warrants. At the same time, I wonder who would do this writer's
performance evaluation? Clearly the engineering manager isn't qualified, and
the doc manager will have no contact until way too late in the process. The
writer becomes a bone between two dogs - not an enviable position!
In addition, if the doc manager has any idea of making this writer's
documents match those of the rest of the company (can you say "consistent
corporate image," boys & girls?), that manager should step up to the plate
and ESTABLISH SOME GROUND RULES WITH THAT OTHER MANAGER. (Yes, I'm
shouting.) That's what "Leadership" is all about. The individual writers
should stand back and watch, providing support when requested, but letting
the people who get PAID to slug it out do so. "When the elephants do battle,
it's the blades of grass that get trampled."
My personal bias is to hate "teams" formed this way. In fact, the very word
"team" is becoming a synonym for "committee," which generally means a
dysfunctional group of competing interests. I suppose some hotshot
consultant will get a book or two out of that, and then another consultant
will come up with a new term, and the whole dance will begin again.
Sorry, I'm not usually this cynical, but I've just seen this movie too many
times.
We return you now to your regularly scheduled discussions. I've got to go to
a "team" meeting teleconference.<Evil Grin>
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